PEASANT WARS IN RUSSIA IN THE XVII-XVIII CENTURIES.
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………. 3
1. TIMES OF TROUBLES.
1.1. The causes of the peasant war at the beginning of the 11th century……………………………. 5
1.2. Peasants' War early XVII century ……………………………………………………… 7
1.3. A look at the events of the early 17th century
like the civil war in Russia………………………………………... 12
2. UPRISING UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF S. T. RAZIN.
2.1. Progress of the uprising………………………………………………………………... 16
2.2. V. M. Solovyov about the Razin movement …………………………………….. 17
3. PEASANT WAR UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF E.I. PUGACHEV.
3.1. Events leading up to the start of the war……………………………….. 24
3.2. The course of the peasant war………………………………………………………. 25
3.5. Some features of the Pugachev movement …………………………. 28
CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………... 30
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………... 31
INTRODUCTION.
The 17th century in the history of our country is a remarkable, turning point time, filled with stormy and heroic events. This is the time when the era of the Middle Ages ends, the era of a new period, late feudalism, begins.
Despite the keen interest in XVII century, his serious research in historical science began quite late. True, already historians XVIII centuries have left us their judgments, but very general ones, about the previous century.
The well-known theory of enslavement and emancipation of classes in the 16th-19th centuries comes from the legal school: the state, with the help of laws, enslaved all classes and forced them to serve its interests. Then it gradually emancipated: first the nobles (1762 decree on noble freedom), then the merchants (1785 charter to the cities) and peasants (1861 decree on the abolition of serfdom). This scheme is very far from reality: feudal lords, as is known, have been Kievan Rus ruling class, and the peasants are an exploited class, while the state acted as a defender of the interests of the feudal lords.
In accordance with the point of view of historians of the state school, the struggle of classes and estates was regarded as a manifestation of an anti-state, anarchic principle. Peasants are not the main thing driving force uprisings, but a passive mass, capable only of escaping from their masters or following the Cossacks during the years of numerous “unrest”, when the latter sought to plunder without submitting to an organized principle - the state.
The problem of social peace and social conflicts has always been and remains relevant for our country.
Soviet historians based the study of history Russia XVII-XVIII centuries put forward the idea of the leading importance of two factors: economic development and class struggle. The development of the economy, the evolution of classes and estates, is significantly inhibited by the serfdom regime, which reached its apogee precisely in these centuries. The tightening of exploitation by feudal lords and state punitive bodies causes increased protest among the lower ranks. No wonder contemporaries called the 17th century “rebellious.”
History of class struggle in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. is the subject close attention, but to whom are expressed various judgments. There is no unity among historians in assessing the first and second Peasant Wars - their chronological framework, stages, effectiveness, historical role, etc. For example, some researchers reduce the first of them to the uprising of I.I. Bolotnikov of 1606-1607, others include in it the Cotton uprising of 1603, the “hunger riots” of 1601-1603, folk movements of the time of the first and second impostors, both militias and so on, right up to the peasant-Cossack uprisings of 1613-1614 and even 1617-1618. Some authors, adhering to the old tradition, call the Moscow uprisings of 1682 and 1698 “reactionary riots” directed against Peter’s reforms (although the latter had not yet begun). Other historians consider these uprisings to be complex, controversial, but overall anti-feudal uprisings.
Research on these and other issues is ongoing broad front: this is the publication of sources (chronicles, discharge, ambassadorial, boyar books, documents on the history of popular uprisings, culture, etc.), their comparative study, the preparation of books on a wide range of problems of the socio-economic, political, cultural development of the country during one of the turning points eras national history.
In this work I will try to consider the history of the Peasant Wars in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries. taking into account different points of view based on scientific monographs and articles by historians of the 19th-20th centuries. The work also used documents on the history of peasant wars in Russia (11; 19; 25).
1. TROUBLESOME TIMES.
1.1. Causes of the Peasant WarXVIIcentury.
At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, the Russian state entered a period of deep state-political, socio-economic, structural crisis, the roots of which went back to the era of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Livonian War, oprichnina terror and growth feudal exploitation caused the collapse of the country's economy, which led to an economic crisis, which, in turn, stimulated the strengthening of serfdom. Against this background, social tension inevitably grew among the lower classes. On the other hand, the nobility also experienced social dissatisfaction, which claimed to expand its rights and privileges, which would be more consistent with its increased role in the state.
They were very deep political reasons troubles. The autocratic tyrannical model of the relationship between government and society, embodied by Ivan the Terrible, in the conditions of the changed social structure has proven its limitations. In a state that has already ceased to be a collection of isolated lands and principalities, but has not yet turned into an organic whole, the most difficult question- who and how can influence government decision-making.
The political crisis also led to a dynastic crisis, which was associated with the suppression of the dynasty of Moscow kings - the descendants of Ivan Kalita after the death of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich on May 15, 1591 (many contemporaries blamed Boris Godunov for his death, although the materials of the investigative commission said the opposite) and his death was not who had an heir, Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, on January 6, 1598. The election of Boris Godunov, who had been the de facto ruler of Russia since 1587, to the throne in February 1598, did not solve the problem. On the contrary, contradictions intensified among the elite groups of the Moscow boyars. The situation was complicated by the widespread spread since the mid-80s. legends about the “prince-deliverer”, which undermined the authority of Tsar Boris, who did not have the advantages of a hereditary monarch.
Achievements of Boris Godunov's policies in the 90s. XVI century were fragile, because they were based on the overstrain of the country’s socio-economic potential, which inevitably led to a social explosion. Discontent covered all layers of society: the nobility and boyars were outraged by the reduction of their family rights, the serving nobility was not satisfied with the government’s policy, which was unable to stop the flight of peasants, which significantly reduced the profitability of their estates, townspeople population opposed the township structure and increased tax oppression, the Orthodox clergy was dissatisfied with the reduction of their privileges and strict subordination to autocratic power.
At the beginning of the century, the country was struck by a terrible crop failure. This disaster brought the country's main tax population to complete ruin. A wave of numerous unrest and uprisings of the starving common people is growing. Government troops had difficulty suppressing such “riots.”
However, Peasant Wars are different from peasant uprisings of this kind. They cover a significant territory of the country and unite the entire set of powerful popular movements, often representing heterogeneous forces. In the peasant war it works standing army rebels, the country splits into two parts, in one of which is the power of the rebels, and in the other - the power of the king. The slogans of the peasant war are of an all-Russian nature.
In the Peasant War of the early 17th century, three large periods are distinguished: the first period (1603-1605), the most important event of which was the Cotton uprising; second period (1606-1607) - peasant revolt under the leadership of I. I. Bolotnikov; third period (1608-1615) - the decline of the Peasant War, accompanied by a number of major uprisings of peasants, townspeople, Cossacks, etc. (17.106).
1.2. The peasant war beganXVIIcentury.
As already mentioned, at the beginning of the century the situation in the country worsened due to crop failures. In 1601 it rained for more than two months. Then very early, in mid-August, frosts hit and snow fell, which led to the destruction of the crop. Prices have increased several times. Bread speculation began. The following year, 1602, the winter crops again failed to germinate. Again, like in 1601, early cold weather set in. Prices have already increased more than 100 times. The people were starving, mass epidemics began.
Boris Godunov organized government works. He attracted Muscovites and refugees who poured into the capital to the construction, using the already existing experience in the construction of the bell tower of Ivan the Great, distributed bread from state bins, allowed serfs to leave their masters and look for opportunities to feed themselves. But all these measures were unsuccessful. Rumors spread that the country was being punished for violating the order of succession to the throne, for the sins of Godunov.
In the center of the country (1603-1604) a revolt of serfs broke out under the leadership of Cotton Crookshanks. It was brutally suppressed, and Khlopok was executed in Moscow. Many historians consider this uprising to be the first stage of the Peasant War of the early 17th century.
In the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth they were just waiting for a reason to intervene in the internal affairs of weakened Russia. In 1602, a man appeared on the estate of Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, posing as the son of Ivan IV, the miraculously surviving Tsarevich Dmitry, who died in Uglich on May 15, 1591. In fact, it was the Galich nobleman Grigory Otrepyev, a disrobed monk of the Chudov Monastery, who belonged to the retinue of Patriarch Job and was closely associated with the Romanovs.
By the beginning of 1605, more than 20 thousand people gathered under the banner of the “prince”. On April 13, 1605, Tsar Boris Godunov suddenly died and his 16-year-old son Fedor ascended the throne. The boyars did not recognize the new king. On May 7, the royal army went over to the side of False Dmitry. Tsar Fedor was overthrown and strangled along with his mother.
However, soon hopes for the “kind and fair” Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich collapsed. A Polish protege, an outspoken political adventurer, sat on the Russian throne. On the night of May 17, 1606, an uprising of the townspeople began. The conspirators broke into the Kremlin and brutally killed False Dmitry 1.
Three days later, the noble boyar Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky was “called out” from Lobnoye Mesto on Red Square as the new tsar, former organizer and the mastermind of the conspiracy, previously convicted of intrigue and poisoned into exile by False Dmitry.
The man who, by the will of fate, found himself on the Moscow throne, enjoyed neither authority nor popular love. The main quality of Shuisky's character was hypocrisy, his favorite method of struggle was intrigue and lies. Like Godunov, he successfully learned all the lessons of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, was distrustful, cunning, but had neither the statesmanship nor the experience of Tsar Boris. This man was not able to stop the collapse of statehood and overcome the social split.
From the very beginning, Shuisky did not enjoy widespread support. The banner of the opposition once again became the name of Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich, who, according to rumors, escaped from the conspirators this time too. Shuisky was opposed by the population of border districts, disgraced supporters of False Dmitry, such as the governor of Putivl, Prince G. Shakhovsky and the governor of Chernigov, Prince A. Telyatevsky. Opposition sentiments gripped the noble corporations. In the summer of 1606, the movement began to acquire an organized character. A leader also appeared - Ivan Isaevich Bolotnikov.
The second stage of the Peasant War began.
Serfdom was a heterogeneous social stratum. The top serfs, close to their owners, occupied enough high position. It is no coincidence that many provincial nobles willingly changed their status to serfs. I. Bolotnikov, apparently, belonged to their number. He was a military slave of A. Telyatevsky and, most likely, a nobleman by origin. However, one should not attach too much importance to this: the social orientation of a person’s views was determined not only by origin. Bolotnikov’s “nobility” can explain his military talents and qualities of a seasoned warrior.
There is news about Bolotnikov’s stay in the Crimean and Turkish captivity, a rower on a galley captured by the “Germans”. There is an assumption that, returning from captivity through Italy, Germany, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Bolotnikov managed to fight on the side of the Austrian emperor as the leader of a mercenary Cossack detachment against the Turks. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why exactly he received the powers of the “great governor” from a man posing as Tsar Dmitry.
The rebels, gathered under the banner of “Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich,” represented a complex conglomerate of forces. Here there were not only people from the lower classes, but also service people of the service and the fatherland. They were united in their rejection of the newly elected king, but different in their social aspirations. After the successful battle of Kromy in August 1606, the rebels occupied Yelets, Tula, Kaluga, Kashira and by the end of the year approached Moscow. Strength for complete blockade the capital was not enough, and this gave Shuisky the opportunity to mobilize all his resources. By this time, a split had occurred in the camp of the rebels and the detachments of Lyapunov (November) and Pashkov (early December) went over to Shuisky’s side.
The battle of Moscow on December 2, 1606 ended in the defeat of Bolotnikov. The latter, after a series of battles, retreated to Tula, under the protection of the stone walls of the city. V. Shuisky himself opposed the rebels in June 1607. approached Tula. For several months, the tsarist troops unsuccessfully tried to take the city, until they blocked the Upa River and flooded the fortress. Shuisky's opponents, relying on his gracious word, opened the gates. However, the king did not miss the opportunity to deal with the leaders of the movement.
It is quite difficult to assess the nature of Bolotnikov’s uprising. There seems to be a one-sided view of movement solely as highest stage peasant war. However, this view exists, and supporters of this view give the following assessments of the first Peasant War. (17, 108)
Some of them believe that she detained legal registration serfdom for 50 years, others believe that it, on the contrary, accelerated the process of legal registration of serfdom, which ended in 1649.
Some historians express a different view of the events described above. In their opinion, the “program of the movement” remains unknown to us: all surviving documents by which one can judge the demands of the rebels belong to the government camp. In Shuisky’s interpretation, the rebels called on Muscovites to destroy “the nobles and the strong” and divide their property. Patriarch Hermogenes announced that “Bolotnikov’s followers are ordering the boyar slaves to beat their boyars, and they are promising them their wives and estates, and estates” (9, 174), promising “to give boyars, and voivodeship, and okolnichestvo, and dyacism” (9, 174) . There are known cases of so-called “thieves' dachas”, when the estates of supporters of Tsar Vasily were transferred to supporters of the “legitimate sovereign Dmitry Ivanovich”. Thus, the struggle was aimed not so much at the destruction of the existing social system, but on the change of individuals and entire social groups within it. Participants of the performance former peasants, serfs, sought to be constituted in the new social status service people, "free Cossacks". The nobility, dissatisfied with Shuisky’s accession, also sought to improve their status. There was an acute, rather complex and contradictory social struggle, going beyond the boundaries outlined by the concept of the peasant war. This struggle naturally complemented the struggle for power - after all, only the victory of one of the contenders ensured the consolidation of the rights of his supporters. This confrontation itself resulted in an armed struggle, with entire armies.
The lower classes of society also took part in the social confrontation. However, the anti-serfdom fervor found its expression, first of all, in the weakening, and subsequently in the progressive destruction of statehood. In a crisis of all power structures, it became increasingly difficult to keep the peasants from leaving. In an effort to gain the support of the nobility, Shuisky March 9, 1607. issued extensive serfdom legislation, which provided for a significant increase in the period of fixed-term years. The search for fugitives became the official responsibility of the local administration, which from now on had to ask every arriving person “whose he is, where he came from, and when he fled” (9, 174). For the first time, monetary sanctions were introduced for accepting a fugitive. However, the Code of 1607 was more of a declarative nature. In the context of the events, the problem that became urgent for the peasantry was not a way out, restored by appearance, but a search for an owner and a place of new residence that would ensure stability of life.
Events of the beginning of the 17th century. a number of historians interpret it as a civil war in Russia. However, not all researchers share this point of view. Emphasizing the absence of clear boundaries of social and political confrontation, they consider all events within the framework outlined by their contemporaries themselves - as turmoil - a time of troubles.
1.3. A look at the events of the beginningXVIIcentury like a civil war
in Russia.
For centuries, scientists have been struggling to unravel the causes and meaning of the Time of Troubles. Progress in the study of the Troubles was achieved thanks to the works of S.F. Platonov, I.I. Smirnov, A.A. Zimin, V.I. Koretsky and other scientists, who considered it as a social phenomenon, prepared by the entire course of the previous development of the country. But already in the course of the discussion that unfolded on the pages of the journal “Questions of History” in the late 1950s, many vulnerabilities of existing concepts were revealed. Both the attempts of a number of Soviet historians to consider the Troubles only from the point of view of the peasant war, and the constructions of S.F. Platonov and I.I. Smirnov, according to which a single complex of events of the Time of Troubles were divided into separate, poorly connected stages, were criticized. N.E. Nosov then expressed a judgment about the Troubles as a civil war, which was a complex interweaving of class, intra-class and international struggle. However, until recently, the events of the early 17th century were viewed primarily from the point of view of the class struggle of peasants and serfs, the culmination of which was considered the Bolotnikov uprising. The other classes that participated in the Troubles were not given due attention. A significant contribution to the study of the Time of Troubles belongs to the historian L.L. Stanislavsky (1939-1990): we're talking about, first of all, about his research on the history of the Cossacks.
In Soviet science, Cossack performances of the early 17th century were traditionally viewed as component peasant war, and the Cossacks themselves - as the vanguard of a broad popular anti-serfdom uprising. Rightly linking the performances of the Cossacks with the protest of the masses against social oppression, researchers at the same time essentially identified the goals of the Cossacks and the peasantry, thereby downplaying (contrary to direct indications from sources) the independent and active role of the Cossacks in the events of the Time of Troubles.
L.L. Stanislavsky convincingly proves that it was the Cossacks who formed the core of the rebel armies of False Dmitry I, Bolotnikov and the “Tushino thief” and most consistently supported the impostors. As their power increased, the Cossacks more and more clearly showed their claims to power in the country, to the role of the new ruling class, which seriously threatened the very existence of the noble class. Only the incompleteness of the class (military) organization of the Cossacks, the author notes, did not allow the Cossacks to seize power in the First Militia even at the moment of the greatest weakening of the nobility.
Up to 1619 “free” Cossacks, acting under the banners of impostors, their elected leaders - Pan Lisovsky and Prince Vladislav, posed a serious threat to the existing social order.
“Who were the Cossacks after all? The vanguard of the revolutionary peasantry or robber condottieres? Liberators of Russia from foreign invaders or their accomplices? Fighters against feudal exploitation or...?” (23, 5). Stanislavsky gives a clear and precise answer to this question: “They were... Cossacks and did everything possible to remain Cossacks until they had to retreat before the entire might of the Russian state” (23, 242). With the help of facts, he proved that the nucleus Cossack army consisted of former peasants and serfs, for whom going to the Cossack villages meant liberation from feudal dependence. Thus, the conclusion of Soviet historiography about the close connection of the Cossack movement of the early 17th century with the protest of the broad masses against social oppression and serfdom is confirmed.
At the same time, the Cossacks are a complex and contradictory phenomenon that did not fit into the framework of the usual ideas about the Troubles as a peasant war.
An important pattern for understanding the fate of the “free” Cossacks is that as the class organization of the Cossacks became more and more distinct, its interests diverged from the interests of other classes - not only the nobility, but also the bulk of the peasantry.
The cessation of the existence of a single class of “free” Cossacks is associated not so much with its internal stratification, but with powerful pressure from the feudal state, the deliberate policy of the government of Mikhail Fedorovich, as a result of which the Cossacks were dispersed across different territories, classes and owners.
Studying the history of the Cossacks, one of the main driving forces of the Troubles, allows us to look at the era of the Troubles as a whole from a new angle. Many historians believe that social protest The peasantry at the beginning of the 17th century did not acquire a clearly defined class orientation and resulted in special, specific forms - joining the Cossacks and participation in the Cossack movement. But the Cossacks themselves were by no means suitable for the role of the “revolutionary vanguard” of the peasantry and. Moreover, the class interests of the Cossacks often came into conflict with the interests of the bulk of the working population. This forces many historians to reconsider traditional ideas about the Time of Troubles (and the Bolotnikov uprising, in particular) as a peasant war.
It has been proven that one of the main springs of the development of the Troubles was the antagonism between the Cossacks and the nobility, who for a decade and a half waged a sharp, irreconcilable struggle for power in the country and influence in the army. But the matter was not limited to the clash of these two forces. There are interesting data about the performances during the Troubles of the southern nobility, which, in terms of social status, stood close to the instrumental service people and suffered from expansion into their lands by the Moscow nobility.
Of great importance for understanding the balance of power within the noble class on the eve and during the Time of Troubles are early studies A.L. Stanislavsky (23) on the history of the sovereign’s court, in which he revealed the presence of serious contradictions between the privileged capital and county nobility, as well as between the nobles of the center and the outskirts. History of the nobility in Time of Troubles needs further study. However, it is already clear that it was not just a “fellow traveler”, but played an active and independent role in the events of the early 17th century.
The works of A.L. Stanislavsky represent a new direction in the study of the Troubles, which was based not only on the antagonism between the nobility and the peasantry, but also on a deep split within the service class. This split was due to the post-oprichnik crisis of local-patrimonial land ownership, the decline in the former importance of the noble cavalry, a change in the balance of power between the nobility and the lower strata of the service class, and a serious divergence of interests of various official and territorial groups of service people. Further study of the Time of Troubles in this vein is an urgent task for historical science.
2. RISE UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF S. T. RAZIN.
2.1. Progress of the uprising.
The culmination of social uprisings in the 17th century was the uprising of Cossacks and peasants led by S.T. Razin. This movement originated in the villages Don Cossacks. The Don freemen have always attracted fugitives from the southern and central regions of the Russian state. Here they were protected by the unwritten law “there is no extradition from the Don.” The government, needing the services of the Cossacks for the defense of the southern borders, paid them a salary and put up with the self-government that existed there.
Stepan Timofeevich Razin, a native of the village of Zimoveyskaya, belonged to the homely Cossacks - he enjoyed great authority. In 1667 he led a detachment of a thousand people who went on a campaign “for the zipuns” (to the Volga, and then to the Yaik River, where they occupied the Yaitsky town with a fight).
Summer of 1668 Razin’s army of almost 20 thousand was already successfully operating in the possessions of Persia (Iran) on the Caspian coast. The Razins exchanged the captured valuables for Russian prisoners, who replenished their ranks. The following summer, 1669, the Cossacks defeated a fleet equipped against them by the Persian Shah near Pig Island (south of Baku). This greatly complicated Russian-Iranian relations and aggravated the government’s position towards the Cossacks.
In October 1669 Razin returned to the Don via Astrakhan, where he was greeted with triumph. Inspired by success, he began preparing a new campaign, this time “for the good Tsar” against the “traitorous boyars.” The next campaign of the Cossacks along the Volga to the north turned into peasant unrest. The Cossacks remained the military core, and with the influx into the detachment huge amount fugitive peasants, peoples of the Volga region - Mordvins, Tatars, Chuvash - the social orientation of the movement changed dramatically.
In May 1670, S.T. Razin’s 7,000-strong detachment captured the city of Tsaritsyn, and at the same time, detachments of archers sent from Moscow and Astrakhan were defeated. Having established Cossack rule in Astrakhan, Razin moved north - Saratov and Samara voluntarily went over to his side. S. Razin addressed the population of the Volga region with “charming” (from the word: to seduce, to urge) letters in which he called on them to join the uprising and harass the traitors, i.e. boyars, nobles, governors, officials. The uprising spread huge territory, on which numerous detachments operated, led by atamans M. Osipov, M. Kharitonov, V. Fedorov, nun Alena and others.
In September, Razin’s army approached Simbirsk and stubbornly besieged it for a month. The frightened government announced mobilization - in August 1679, a 60,000-strong army headed to the Middle Volga region. In early October, a government detachment under the command of Yu. Baryatinsky defeated the main forces of Razin and joined the Simbirsk garrison under the command of governor I. Miloslavsky. Razin with a small detachment went to the Don, where he hoped to recruit a new army, but was betrayed by the top of the Cossacks and handed over to the government. June 4, 1671 he was taken to Moscow and executed on Red Square two days later. In November 1671 Astrakhan, the last stronghold of the rebels, fell. Participants in the uprising were subjected to brutal repression.
2.2. V. M. Solovyov about the Razin movement.
The theme of the Razin uprising is the largest popular movement in Russia in the 17th century. has always aroused great interest among researchers of the history of our country in the early Middle Ages. It is not surprising that even now, when Russian historiography has undergone a revision of the concepts that dominated in the recent past, historians are turning to it. Social-psychological and many other issues related to the uprising were at one time reflected in the works of V.I. Buganov and A.N. Sakharov, which still retain priority positions.
V.M. Soloviev (21), who is responsible for a number of interesting studies, is also working very fruitfully in this direction. In this part of the work, I want to present a concentrated analysis of V.M. Solovyov’s views on the Razin movement and its leader.
V. M. Solovyov considered it possible to evaluate the Razin uprising as a “Russian revolt.” Considering the Razin movement a “Russian revolt,” he does not refuse to evaluate the events that took place under Stepan Razin as an uprising, and at a certain stage of their development as a peasant war.
V. M. Solovyov revealed the complex dialectical essence of the events of 1667 - 1671. In the historical context, they appear as a bizarre amalgamation of heterogeneous and multi-order spontaneous manifestations, in which the features of a senseless and merciless rebellion, blind rebellion, and all the signs of a huge popular uprising, and the characteristics of the so-called peasant war, and much more, from a purely Cossack movement are discernible at the same time , directed against statism - the dictates of the state, to national liberation, religious protests. Finally, in these events, adventuristic principles powerfully make themselves felt (the hoax with the false Tsarevich Alexei and the imaginary Patriarch Nikon, etc.) and banal robbery, criminality (pogroms, robberies). All this is not separated from one another, but coexists, is closely intertwined, and often collides with each other due to deep internal contradictions inherent in the very nature of razinism - an extremely motley, confusing and very heterogeneous phenomenon in terms of its participants.
Solovyov decided to contrast the historical reality, recreated from sources, with the myths about Razin’s time, about the Razin uprising and about its leader himself. One of the myths rooted in the mass consciousness is the 17th century, when the good old Russian morals, general contentment and prosperity allegedly reigned. Using a large amount of factual material, V. M. Solovyov showed how difficult the fate of people from different layers Russian society and, especially from its lower classes - the poor part of the settlement, peasants and serfs, how strong was the omnipotence of people close to the tsar and the arbitrariness of the local administration. He pays special attention to the Council Code and the consequences of its adoption for the country. Emphasizing that its adoption was accelerated both by a number of large urban uprisings in Russia and by the revolution in England, which made a great impression on the ruling circles of all European countries, Solovyov saw in Cathedral Code“essentially a pacifying curb on the people” and the establishment of an indefinite search for fugitives is its “centre of gravity” and “main social meaning” (21, 25). Analysis of the contents of the Code allowed the historian to show why the Razin uprising, started by the Don Cossacks, grew into a mass popular movement of public protest that covered a significant part of the state.
Another myth is about the boundless kindness of the “quiet” Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. In part, perhaps, it was inspired by the words of V.O. Klyuchevsky, taken out of context, that this king is “ kindest person, glorious Russian soul" (10). At the same time, V.O. Klyuchevsky noted, however, the complexity and contradictory nature of the king, who in no way was “above the rudest of his subjects” (10), a characteristic that is often not taken into account. Soloviev cited several vivid and convincing facts showing this sovereign as a tyrant.
Another myth is about isolation Don Cossacks, among whom the Razin uprising began, from the population of cities and counties of Central Russia, from peasants and townspeople, from small service people. It must be admitted that there are certain grounds for such a myth. They are associated with significant features that the Cossack community had in comparison with the population of internal Russia in their way of life and everyday life, in mentality and culture. But with all this, the Don people in the 17th century. had relatives in Rus'. They often came to them and lived with them, and hosted people who came for a while from the center of the country. They took such people with them on military campaigns, gave them at the “duvan” the part of the booty due to them, and some of them even defended Azov during siege seat 1641 Solovyov is characterized by an exceptionally balanced approach to resolving the very difficult question of how connected Don was with internal Russia. He managed to emphasize the originality and isolation of the Cossacks and at the same time their close connection with the population of Central Russia. The historian sees the manifestation of such a connection during the Razin uprising itself.
Currently, the view of the largest popular uprisings in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries, including the Razin uprising, as an uprising of the outskirts against central government. His supporters, M.M. Sokolsky and G.G. Nolte, point out the presence of serious contradictions between the center and the outskirts. At the same time, according to G.G. Nolte, the desire of their population to ensure greater self-determination of the regions was important requirement modern times, since this could contribute to their accelerated development. According to Solovyov, such contradictions are indeed one of the the most important reasons Razin uprising. Thus, he notes that the Don Cossacks had “their own reasons for discontent, their own scores to settle with the government.” They were not satisfied that gradually “the Don became increasingly dependent on the Russian state.” The danger of losing the freemen “turned into fierce resistance” of the Cossacks, which ultimately resulted in the Razin uprising (21, 81), the historian sees special reasons for the uprising of the population of such a unique outskirts as Astrakhan, with its developed trade, the Astrakhan people hoped, with the help of Razin, to get rid of taxes and extortion, and to establish their own trade. and profit from other people's goods.
At the same time, Solovyov does not share the opinion that the Razin movement is only an uprising of the “common people of the inner Russian outskirts” (15, 36). If we consider the outskirts of the country to be those territories that were located to the south and east of the abatis line, and the internal counties to the north and west of it, then in the fall of 1670. The uprising spread to the interior districts as far as Unzha and Vetluga, Makaryev Zheltovodsk Monastery and Arzamas. Solovyov calculated that the “peasant war zone” included 110 cities (21, 114), and the aspirations and aspirations of its participants, both in the central part of the country and beyond, were largely similar. There is reason to talk about the rise of the outskirts during the Razin uprising, but it would hardly be correct to reduce the uprising only to this (however, in the same way as only to the peasant war). Closer to the truth is the view of the Razin uprising and similar popular movements as a “complex and motley phenomenon” that cannot be limited “by purely class boundaries” (20, 134).
However, popular movements are not only complex, but also deeply contradictory historical phenomena. Solovyov emphasized the contradictions of the Razin uprising more than once. Of particular interest is the way he highlighted the contradictions between the aspirations of the people who supported Razin, and real results temporary victory of the Razins in certain regions of the country and primarily in Astrakhan, where the rebels held out the longest. Instead of voivodship power, the Astrakhan settlement found itself under the rule of Razin’s atamans, and the extortions and arbitrariness of voivodes and clerks were replaced by the establishment of forced equality, the introduction of “militarized management” and the dictates of “city goals” (21, 97).
If we continue the comparative series begun by the historian, then it should be of undoubted interest to compare what the initiators and skirmishers of the uprising themselves, the Don Cossacks, were striving for, and what they actually received from Razin. The movement, raised in defense of the traditions of Don free life and Cossack democracy, turned into a violation of freedom. This was manifested in the organization of the Razins into a special army, which represented an attempt on the traditional combined arms unity on the Don and the Cossack brotherhood, and in the murder on the circle on April 12, 1670. the Tsar's envoy G. Evdokamov, contrary to the will of the Don army and the norms of military law, and in the repeated threats of Stepan Razin and his atamans to the elders and Cossacks in the Cherkassy town. So, instead of freedom and military democracy, the Razin Cossacks established their essentially unlimited omnipotence on the Don. Largely thanks to this, by the spring of 1671. Razin had many opponents among the Don Cossacks. Apparently, the discrepancy between the aspirations, hopes, and aspirations of participants in popular movements in Russia and the results of these movements is a historical pattern. The question posed by Solovyov is of interest - what could await the country in the event of a “successful outcome” of the Razin uprising? The historian justified the possibility of implementing such a historical alternative, firstly, by the fact that there are known cases when peasant wars were won (Norway, China, Ukraine under Bogdan Khmelnitsky), and, secondly, by the fact that Razin might not have stayed at Simbirsk and lead his army “without turning back or hesitating... through agricultural areas with a peasant population to Moscow” (21, 193). However, the question that naturally arises after this is what would happen next? - Soloviev never answered. In his opinion, what makes it difficult to give an answer is “the lack of clear defined goals and guidelines for the struggle of the rebels and, in general, the extreme inconsistency of their goals” (21, 194). The only thing that is absolutely clear to the historian is the groundlessness and utopianism of hopes for a “nationwide revolt” as a breakthrough “into the world of enlightened democratic freedom and civilized relations” (21, 194).
Solovyov, of course, is right when he does not try to clarify and concretize the picture of the life of the country in the event of the Razinites seizing power and limits himself to only a general indication of negative consequences such an outcome of the uprising. At the same time, it is difficult to agree with the historian regarding the possibility of military success for the Razins. Apparently, Solovyov still underestimated the strength of the state and the degree of its superiority over the rebels. Razin could not give up the fight for Simbirsk and go directly to Moscow. This was due to the peculiarities of the military-strategic thinking of the Don Cossacks, who traditionally attached exceptional importance to the waterway, and to the peculiarities of combat tactics in all major popular movements in Russia in the 17th - 18th centuries, a typical feature of which was the desire to capture large fortified cities. And in general, Moscow was too tough a nut to crack for the rebels. Even during the Time of Troubles, when the state was weakened, Ivan Bolotnikov could not take it. Thus, Razin could hardly count on a military victory. Nevertheless, the question of an alternative outcome of the uprising is of undoubted interest. The search for an answer to it allows us to better understand the nature of the events that took place under Razin and the very essence of popular uprisings in Russia.
Very interesting is such an important problem as the influence of the Razin uprising on the policy of the Russian government after its suppression. The authorities did a lot to achieve this. to prevent anything like this from happening again. What is striking, however, is the very low effectiveness of the measures taken: riots in Russia right up to the Bulavin uprising followed an essentially continuous sequence. Raising and resolving the question of the reasons for the inability of the top of Russian society to find effective mechanisms to counter the rebellious spirit widespread among the people will not only make it possible to better understand the nature and features of the country’s development at the end of the 17th - 18th centuries, but, perhaps, shed light on New World on the historical tragedy of Russia in modern times.
In general, V. M. Solovyov made a valuable contribution to the study of the history of the Razin movement. He managed to show the uprising led by S. Razin as a very complex phenomenon, which cannot be given an unambiguous assessment.
3. PEASANT WAR LED BY
E.I. PUGACHEV.
3.1. Events leading up to the start of the war.
Second half of the 18th century. is distinguished by a sharp increase in the social activity of the working population: landowners, monastic and assigned peasants, working people of manufactories, peoples of the Volga region, Bashkiria, Yaik Cossacks. It reached its apogee in the peasant war under the leadership of E.I. Pugachev.
On Yaik, where in September 1773 an impostor appeared, posing as Peter III, favorable conditions arose for his calls to find a response first among the Cossacks, and then among the peasants, working people, Bashkirs and the peoples of the Volga region.
The tsarist government on Yaik, as elsewhere, where it ceased to need the services of the Cossacks for the defense of the border territory, began to pursue a policy of limiting its privileges: back in the 40s. The election of military chieftains was abolished, and Cossacks began to be recruited to serve far from their homes. The economic interests of the Cossacks were also infringed - at the mouth of the river. The Yaik government built uchugs (barriers) that prevented the movement of fish from the Caspian Sea to the upper reaches of the river.
The infringement of privileges caused the division of the Cossacks into two camps. The so-called “obedient” side was ready to agree to the loss of previous liberties in order to preserve some of the privileges. The bulk was the “disobedient side,” which constantly sent walkers to the empress with complaints about the oppression of the “obedient” Cossacks, in whose hands were all command positions.
In January 1772, the “naughty” Cossacks set off with banners and icons to arrive in Yaitsky town to the Tsar's general with a request to remove the military chieftain and foremen. The general ordered to shoot at the peaceful procession. The Cossacks responded with an uprising, which the government sent a corps of troops to suppress.
After the events of January 13, the Cossack krut was banned and the military chancellery was liquidated; the Cossacks were controlled by an appointed commandant, subordinate to the Orenburg governor. At this time Pugachev appeared.
None of his impostor predecessors possessed the qualities of a leader capable of leading the masses of the dispossessed. Pugachev’s success, in addition, was facilitated by a favorable environment and those people to whom he turned for help to restore his allegedly violated rights: on Yaik, excitement from the recent uprising and the government’s response measures did not subside; Cossacks owned weapons and represented the most militarily organized part of the Russian population.
3.2. The course of the peasant war.
The uprising began on September 17, 1773. In front of 80 Cossacks, initiated into the “secret” of saving Peter III, the manifesto was read out, and the detachment set off. The manifesto satisfied the aspirations of the Cossacks: the tsar granted them a river, herbs, lead, gunpowder, provisions, and a salary. This manifesto has not yet taken into account peasant interests. But the promise was enough that the next day the detachment already numbered 200 people, and new additions were added to its composition every hour. Almost three weeks have begun triumphal procession Pugacheva. On October 5, 1773, he approached the provincial city of Orenburg - a well-defended fortress with a garrison of three thousand. The assault on the city was unsuccessful, and a six-month siege began.
The government sent troops under the command of Major General Kara to Orenburg. However, the rebel troops completely defeated the 1.5 thousand-strong Kara detachment. The same fate befell the detachment of Colonel Chernyshov. These victories over regular troops made a huge impression. The Bashkirs led by Salavat Yulaev, mining workers, and peasants assigned to the factories joined the uprising - some voluntarily, others under duress. At the same time, the appearance of Kara in Kazan, who shamefully fled from the battlefield, sowed panic among the local nobility. Anxiety gripped the capital of the empire.
In connection with the siege of Orenburg and the long standing of troops at the walls of the fortress, the number of which in other months reached 30 thousand people, the leaders of the movement faced tasks that were not known to the practice of previous movements: it was necessary to organize supplies rebel army food and weapons, start recruiting regiments, and counter government propaganda with the popularization of the movement’s slogans.
In Berd, the headquarters of “Emperor Peter III”, located 5 versts from blockaded Orenburg, its own court etiquette was formed, its own guard appeared, the emperor acquired a seal with the inscription “Big state seal Peter III, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia,” the young Cossack woman Ustinya Kuznetsova, whom Pugachev married, had maids of honor. At headquarters, a body of military, judicial and administrative power was created - the Military Collegium, which was in charge of the distribution of property seized from nobles, officials and clergy, the recruitment of regiments, and the distribution of weapons.
In a familiar form, borrowed from government practice. other social content was invested. The “tsar” did not grant colonels to nobles, but to representatives of the people. Former craftsman Afanasy Sokolov, better known by the nickname Khlopusha, became one of the outstanding leaders of the rebel army operating in the region of the factories of the Southern Urals. The rebel camp also had its own counts. The first of them was Chika-Zarubin, who acted under the name of “Count Ivan Nikiforovich Chernyshev.”
The proclamation of Pugachev as emperor, the formation of the Military Collegium, the introduction of count dignity, testifies to the inability of the peasantry and Cossacks to replace the old social order new - it was about changing faces.
In the months when Pugachev was busy besieging Orenburg, the government camp was intensively preparing to fight the rebels. Troops quickly converged on the area of the uprising; instead of the removed Kara, General Bibikov was appointed commander-in-chief. To inspire the nobles and express her solidarity to them, Catherine declared herself a Kazan landowner.
The first major battle of the Pugachevites with the punitive army took place on March 22, 1774 near the Tatishchev Fortress; it lasted six hours and ended in the complete victory of government troops. But the nature of the peasant war was such that the losses were quickly made up.
After this defeat, the second stage of the peasant war began.
Pugachev was forced to lift the siege of Orenburg and, pursued by government troops, move east. From April to June, the main events of the peasant war unfolded on the territory of the mining Urals and Bashkiria. However, the burning of factories, confiscation of livestock and property from assigned peasants and working people, violence inflicted on the population of factory villages led to the fact that the factory owners managed to arm working people at their own expense, organize detachments from them and send them against Pugachev. This narrowed the base of the movement and disrupted the unity of the rebels. At the Trinity Fortress, Pugachev suffered another defeat, after which he rushed first to the north-west and then to the west. The ranks of the rebels were joined by the peoples of the Volga region: Udmurts, Maris, Chuvashs. When Pugachev approached Kazan on July 12, 1774, his army numbered 20 thousand people. He captured the city, but did not have time to the Kremlin, where the government troops were settled - Mikhelson arrived in time to help the besieged and inflicted another defeat on the rebels. On July 17, Pugachev, together with the remnants of the defeated army, crossed to the right bank of the Volga - to areas inhabited by serfs and state peasants. The third period of the peasant war began.
Pugachev’s manifestos were of great importance in restoring the strength of the rebel army. Already in the manifestos published in November 1773, the peasants were called upon to “deprive the villains and opponents of my imperial will,” which meant landowners, of their lives, “and take their houses and all their property as compensation.” The manifesto of July 31, 1774, which proclaimed the liberation of peasants from serfdom and taxes, most fully reflected peasant aspirations. The nobles, as “disturbers of the empire and destroyers of the peasants,” were to be “caught, executed and hanged and acted equally the way they, not having Christianity in them, did with you peasants.”
On the right bank of the Volga, the peasant war flared up with renewed vigor - rebel groups were created everywhere, acting separately and out of communication with each other, which facilitated the punitive efforts of the government: Pugachev easily occupied the cities - Kurmysh, Temnikov, Insar, etc., but with the same ease and left them under pressure from superior government forces. He moved to the Lower Volga, where he was joined by barge haulers, Don, Volga and Ukrainian Cossacks. In August he approached Tsaritsyn, but did not take possession of the city. With a small detachment, Pugachev crossed to the left bank of the Volga, where the Yaik Cossacks who were with him captured him and handed him over to Michelson on September 12, 1774.
The Peasant War ended in defeat.
3.3. Some features of the Pugachev movement.
It was impossible to expect any other outcome of the spontaneous protest against the arbitrariness of the authorities and landowners: armed with whatever they could, the crowds of rebels could not resist the regiments of well-armed and trained regular army. Let us note some features of the Pugachev movement.
The main ones consisted of attempts to overcome spontaneity using means borrowed from the government administration: under the newly-minted Emperor Peter III, the same orders were established as at the royal court in St. Petersburg. In these actions of Pugachev, the goal of the movement clearly emerges: its leaders were supposed to take the place of the executed nobles and representatives of the tsarist administration.
The call for the wholesale extermination of nobles, who were actually put to death without trial or investigation, caused enormous damage to the development national culture, because the most educated part of society was exterminated.
Another feature is that the rebels deliberately and under the influence of the elements of destruction completely or partially destroyed 89 iron and copper smelting plants, with a total cost, according to the plant owners, certainly exaggerated, of 2,716 thousand rubles. The noble nests of European Russia, engulfed in a peasant war, were plundered.
The victors acted just as mercilessly and cruelly, putting to death thousands of movement participants. In only one Nizhny Novgorod province the punishers built gallows in more than two hundred populated areas. The Yaik Cossacks were renamed the Ural Cossacks, and the Yaik River was renamed the Ural. The village of Zimoveyskaya, in which Pugachev was born, and a century before him - Razin, began to be called Potemkinskaya. On January 10, 1775, the leader of the peasant war and his comrades were executed on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The nobility, led by the “Kazan landowner” Catherine II, celebrated the victory.
CONCLUSION.
The peasant wars in Russia created and developed traditions of struggle against lawlessness and oppression. They also played a role in the history of political and social development of Russia.
Usually, when assessing these events, historians note that the peasant wars dealt a blow to the serfdom system and accelerated the triumph of new capitalist relations. At the same time, it is often forgotten that the wars that covered the vast expanses of Russia led to the destruction of masses of the population (and many peasants, a significant number of nobles), upset economic life in many regions and had a heavy impact on the development of productive forces.
Violence and cruelty on full display warring parties, could not solve any of the pressing problems of socio-economic development. The entire history of the peasant wars and their consequences is the clearest confirmation of Pushkin’s brilliant assessment: “The condition of the entire region where the fire raged was terrible. God forbid we see a Russian rebellion - senseless and merciless. Those who are plotting impossible revolutions among us are either young and do not know our people, or they are hard-hearted people, for whom someone else’s head is half a piece, and their own neck is a penny” (7, 87).
What are peasant wars? Fair peasant punishment for oppressors and serf owners? A civil war in long-suffering Russia, during which Russians killed Russians? “Russian revolt, senseless and merciless” (7, 87)? Each time gives its own answers to these questions. Apparently, any violence can give rise to violence that is even more cruel and bloody. It is immoral to idealize riots, peasant or Cossack uprisings (which, by the way, were done in our recent past), as well as civil wars, since generated by untruths and extortion, injustice and an insatiable thirst for wealth, these uprisings, riots and wars themselves bring violence and injustice, grief and ruin, suffering and rivers of blood...
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Buganov Emelyan Pugachev. M., 1990.
2. The world of history (Russia in the 17th century). M., 1989.
3. Buganov V.I. Razin and the Razins. M., 1995.
4. Buganov V.I. “Investigation Case” by Stepan Razin/History of the Fatherland. 1994, no. 1.
5. Busov K. Moscow Chronicle 1584-1613. M., 1961.
6. Great statesmen of Russia, ed. Kiseleva A.V. M., 1996.
7. Zaichkin I.A., Pochkarev P.P. Russian history from Catherine the Great to Alexander II. M., 1994.
8. Zuev M.N. History of Russia. M., 1998.
9. History of Russia from ancient times to 1861./Ed. Pavlenko N.I. M., 1998.
10. Klyuchevsky V.O. Works in 9 volumes, vol. 3. M., 1988.
11. Peasant war led by Stepan Razin. Collection of documents. M., 1954-1976. T.1-4.
12. Malkov V.V. A manual on the history of the USSR for those entering universities. M., 1985.
13. Moryakov V.I. History of Russia. M., 1996.
14. Munchaev Sh.M. Domestic history. M., 1999.
15. Nolge G.G. Russian “peasant wars” as uprisings of the outskirts / Questions of history. 1994, no. 11.
16. Domestic history. Textbook ed. Borisova. M., 1996.
17. A manual on the history of the USSR / Ed. Orlova A.S., Georgieva V.A., Naumova N.V., Sivokhina G.A. M., 1984.
18. Pushkarev S.G. Review of Russian history. Stavropol, 1993.
19. Collection of documents on the history of Russia from ancient times to the second quarter of the 19th century. Ekaterinburg, 1993.
20.. Current issues studying popular movements (Polemical notes on peasant wars in Russia) / History of the USSR. 1991, no. 3.
21. Soloviev V.M. Anatomy of the Russian revolt. Stepan Razin: myths and reality. M., 1994.
22. Soloviev V.M. Razin and his time. M., 1990.
23. Stanislavsky A.L. Civil war in Russia in the 17th century: the Cossacks at the turning point of history. M., 990.
24. Fedorov V.L. History of Russia. M., 1998.
25. Reader on the history of the USSR from ancient times to the end of the 18th century. M., 1989.
26. Chistyakova E.V., Solovyov V.M. Stepan Razin and his associates. M., 1990.
27. Sharova L.N., Mishina I.A. History of the Fatherland. M., 1992.
PEASANT WARS IN RUSSIA IN THE XVII-XVIII CENTURIES.
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………. 3
1. TIMES OF TROUBLES.
1.1. The causes of the peasant war at the beginning of the 11th century……………………………. 5
1.2. Peasant war of the early 17th century………………………………………………………… 7
1.3. A look at the events of the early 17th century
like the civil war in Russia………………………………………... 12
2. UPRISING UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF S. T. RAZIN.
2.1. Progress of the uprising………………………………………………………………... 16
2.2. V. M. Solovyov about the Razin movement …………………………………….. 17
3. PEASANT WAR UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF E.I. PUGACHEV.
3.1. Events leading up to the start of the war……………………………….. 24
3.2. The course of the peasant war………………………………………………………. 25
3.5. Some features of the Pugachev movement …………………………. 28
CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………... 30
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………... 31
INTRODUCTION
The 17th century in the history of our country is a remarkable time, a turning point, filled with stormy and heroic events. This is the time when the era of the Middle Ages ends, the era of a new period, late feudalism, begins.
Despite the keen interest in the 17th century, its serious study in historical science started quite late. True, historians of the 18th century already left us their judgments, but very general ones, about the previous century.
The well-known theory of enslavement and emancipation of classes in the 16th-19th centuries comes from the legal school: the state, with the help of laws, enslaved all classes and forced them to serve its interests. Then it gradually emancipated: first the nobles (1762 decree on noble freedom), then the merchants (1785 charter to the cities) and peasants (1861 decree on the abolition of serfdom). This scheme is very far from reality: feudal lords, as is known, have constituted the ruling class since the time of Kievan Rus, and peasants have been the exploited class, while the state acted as the defender of the interests of the feudal lords.
In accordance with the point of view of historians of the state school, the struggle of classes and estates was regarded as a manifestation of an anti-state, anarchic principle. The peasants are not the main driving force of the uprisings, but a passive mass, capable only of escaping from their masters or following the Cossacks during the years of numerous “unrest”, when the latter sought to plunder without submitting to an organized principle - the state.
The problem of social peace and social conflicts has always been and remains relevant for our country.
Soviet historians as the basis for studying the history of Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. put forward the idea of the leading importance of two factors: economic development and class struggle. The development of the economy, the evolution of classes and estates, is significantly inhibited by the serfdom regime, which reached its apogee precisely in these centuries. The tightening of exploitation by feudal lords and state punitive bodies causes increased protest among the lower ranks. No wonder contemporaries called the 17th century “rebellious.”
History of class struggle in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. is the subject of close attention, but to which various judgments have been made. There is no unity among historians in assessing the first and second Peasant Wars - their chronological framework, stages, effectiveness, historical role, etc. For example, some researchers reduce the first of them to the uprising of I.I. Bolotnikov of 1606-1607, others include in it the Cotton uprising of 1603, the “hunger riots” of 1601-1603, the popular movements of the time of the first and second impostors, both militias, and so on, right up to the peasant-Cossack uprisings of 1613-1614 and even 1617-1618. Some authors, adhering to the old tradition, call the Moscow uprisings of 1682 and 1698 “reactionary riots” directed against Peter’s reforms (although the latter had not yet begun). Other historians consider these uprisings to be complex, controversial, but overall anti-feudal uprisings.
Research on these and other issues is carried out on a wide front: this is the publication of sources (chronicles, discharge, ambassadorial, boyar books, documents on the history of popular uprisings, culture, etc.), their comparative study, the preparation of books on a wide range of problems of socio-economic, political , cultural development country during one of the turning points in Russian history.
In this work I will try to consider the history of the Peasant Wars in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries. taking into account different points of view based on scientific monographs and articles by historians of the 19th-20th centuries. The work also used documents on the history of peasant wars in Russia (11; 19; 25).
1. TIMES OF TROUBLES.
1.1. The causes of the peasant war at the beginning of the 17th century.
At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, the Russian state entered a period of deep state-political, socio-economic, structural crisis, the roots of which went back to the era of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The Livonian War, oprichnina terror and the growth of feudal exploitation led to the collapse of the country's economy, which led to an economic crisis, which, in turn, stimulated the strengthening of serfdom. Against this background, social tension inevitably grew among the lower classes. On the other hand, the nobility also experienced social dissatisfaction, which claimed to expand its rights and privileges, which would be more consistent with its increased role in the state.
The political causes of the unrest were very deep. The autocratic tyrannical model of the relationship between government and society, embodied by Ivan the Terrible, in the conditions of a changed social structure, has proven its limitations. In a state that has ceased to be a collection of isolated lands and principalities, but has not yet turned into an organic whole, the most difficult question has arisen on the agenda - who and how can influence the adoption of government decisions.
Political crisis also caused a dynastic crisis, which was associated with the suppression of the dynasty of Moscow kings - the descendants of Ivan Kalita after the death of Tsarevich Dmitry in Uglich on May 15, 1591 (many contemporaries blamed Boris Godunov for his death, although the materials of the investigative commission said the opposite) and the death of the one who had no heir Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich on January 6, 1598. The election of Boris Godunov, who had been the de facto ruler of Russia since 1587, to the throne in February 1598, did not solve the problem. On the contrary, contradictions intensified among the elite groups of the Moscow boyars. The situation was complicated by the widespread spread since the mid-80s. legends about the “prince-deliverer”, which undermined the authority of Tsar Boris, who did not have the advantages of a hereditary monarch.
Achievements of Boris Godunov's policies in the 90s. XVI century were fragile, because they were based on the overstrain of the country’s socio-economic potential, which inevitably led to a social explosion. Dissatisfaction covered all layers of society: the nobility and boyars were outraged by the curtailment of their tribal rights, the serving nobility was not satisfied with the government’s policy, which was unable to stop the flight of peasants, which significantly reduced the profitability of their estates, the townspeople opposed the townspeople’s structure and increased tax oppression, the Orthodox clergy were dissatisfied by curtailing their privileges and rigid subordination to autocratic power.
At the beginning of the century, the country was struck by a terrible crop failure. This disaster brought the country's main tax population to complete ruin. A wave of numerous unrest and uprisings of the starving common people is growing. Government troops had difficulty suppressing such “riots.”
However, Peasant Wars are different from peasant uprisings of this kind. They cover a significant territory of the country and unite the entire set of powerful popular movements, often representing heterogeneous forces. In a peasant war, a permanent army of rebels acts, the country breaks up, as it were, into two parts, in one of which is the power of the rebels, and in the other - the power of the tsar. The slogans of the peasant war are of an all-Russian nature.
In the Peasant War of the early 17th century, three large periods are distinguished: the first period (1603-1605), the most important event of which was the Cotton uprising; second period (1606-1607) - peasant uprising under the leadership of I. I. Bolotnikov; third period (1608-1615) - the decline of the Peasant War, accompanied by a number of major uprisings of peasants, townspeople, Cossacks, etc. (17.106).
By the second half of the 17th century, serfdom entered its zenith. Following the publication of the Code of 1649, the tendency towards self-emancipation of the peasants intensified - their spontaneous and sometimes threatening flight to the outskirts: to the Volga region, Siberia, to the south, to the places of Cossack settlements that arose in the 16th century and have now become centers of concentration of the most active layers of the unfree population. The state, which guarded the interests of the ruling class of feudal lords, organized massive searches for fugitives and returned them to their former owners. In the 50s and 60s of the 17th century, unsuccessful experiments of the treasury, the war between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, aggravated the brewing discontent. Already insightful contemporaries clearly saw the essential features of the new. “ Rebellious Age“- this is how they assessed their time. At the very beginning of this century, the country was shocked by the first Peasant War, which reached its highest peak in 1606-1607, when Ivan Isaevich Bolotnikov stood at the head of the rebels - peasants, serfs, and urban poor. WITH with great difficulty and with considerable effort the feudal lords suppressed this mass popular movement. However, it was followed by: a speech led by the monastic peasant Balazs; unrest among the troops near Smolensk; more than 20 urban uprisings that swept across the country in the middle of the century, starting from Moscow (1648); uprisings in Novgorod and Pskov (1650); “Copper Riot” (1662), the scene of which again becomes the capital, and, finally, the Peasant War of Stepan Razin.
Salt riot like shining example most urban uprisings
During the 17th century, more than one urban uprising occurred, the cause of which was the illiterate government policy. These are uprisings in Pskov and Novgorod, and a “copper” riot in Moscow, the cause of which was a colossal treasury gamble and many more such uprisings. Indeed, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the situation in cities became tense: the authorities looked at city residents as inexhaustible source income. This was manifested in the following: from year to year the state sought to increase posad taxes and at the same time reduce the salaries of service people.
Thus, the “salt” riot, which began in Moscow on June 1, 1648, was one of the most powerful actions of Muscovites in defense of their rights.
The “salt” riot involved archers, serfs - in a word, those people who had reasons to be dissatisfied with the government’s policies.
The course of the uprising The revolt began, it would seem, with little things. Returning from a pilgrimage from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, the young Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was surrounded by petitioners who asked the Tsar to remove L. S. Pleshcheev from his post as head of the Zemstvo Council, motivating this desire by the injustice of Leonty Stepanovich: by the fact that he took bribes, carried out an unfair trial, but there was no response from the sovereign. Then the complainants decided to turn to the queen, but this also did not yield anything: the guards dispersed the people. Some were arrested. The next day, the king organized a religious procession, but even then complainants appeared demanding the release of those arrested on the first number of petitioners and still resolve the issue of cases of bribery. The tsar asked his “uncle” and relative, boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov, for clarification on this matter. After listening to the explanations, the king promised the petitioners to resolve this issue. Hiding in the palace, the tsar sent four ambassadors for negotiations: Prince Volkonsky, clerk Volosheinov, Prince Temkin-Rostov, and the okolnichy Pushkin.
But this measure did not turn out to be a solution to the issue, since the ambassadors behaved extremely arrogantly, which greatly angered the petitioners. The next unpleasant fact was the release of the archers from subordination. Due to the arrogance of the ambassadors, the archers beat the boyars sent for negotiations.
The eve of the Peasant War. In 1771, an uprising of townspeople broke out in Moscow, called the “Plague Riot.” The plague, which began in the Russian-Turkish theater of war, despite strict quarantine, was brought to Moscow and killed up to a thousand people a day. City authorities in extreme situation were confused, which increased distrust in them. The reason for the uprising was an attempt by Moscow Archbishop Ambrose and Governor P.D. Eropkin, for hygienic reasons, to remove the miraculous icon of the Mother of God from the Varvarsky Gate of Kitay-Gorod (thousands of Muscovites venerated it). Ambrose was torn to pieces by a crowd in the Donskoy Monastery. For three days a riot raged in the city. From St. Petersburg, the Empress's favorite G. G. Orlov with a guards regiment was sent to suppress the uprising. Over a hundred people were killed, many were punished with whips, rods, and lashes. The decisive measures taken by Orlov led to a decline and gradual cessation of the epidemic.
In the decade preceding the Peasant War, historians count more than 40 speeches by serfs. In the 50-70s of the 18th century. The flight of desperate peasants from their masters reached great proportions. Forged decrees and manifestos containing rumors about the supposed imminent liberation of peasants from serfdom became widespread among the population. Imposture also took place: there is information about six cases of the appearance before the start of the Peasant War of “Petrov III” - doubles of the emperor who died in 1762. In such a situation, the Peasant War broke out under the leadership of E.I. Pugacheva.
In the XVII-XVIII centuries. There were powerful popular uprisings that shook the social foundations of Russia to the core. In historical literature they are called “peasant wars,” which is largely arbitrary. More correct in in this case is the term “civil wars”, because the peasants in them were not always the main active force; The goals of the movements were also broader and more complex, reflecting the interests of not only, and often not so much, the peasants. At the same time, singling out from the multitude of social actions those for which the name “peasant wars” has been assigned is quite justified. They were the highest form of class struggle in feudal Russia and differed from other popular uprisings primarily in their scale: huge masses of people were involved in the struggle, it covered vast territories and was accompanied by fierce battles. The rebels formed their own armies, local government bodies and, as a rule, sought to seize power throughout the country, creating a real threat to the prevailing order.
The first of these wars at the beginning of the 17th century. was a response to the serfdom policy of the authorities at the end of the 16th century. and the economic and political crisis in the country. Abolition of the right of peasants to “go out” on St. George’s Day, multiple increases in taxes and duties, mass conversion free people for debts to serfs, the seizure of peasant lands and unlimited feudal tyranny during the years of the oprichnina, ruin during Livonian War, devastating epidemics - all this created an explosive situation. Events related to the shift made her even more tense. ruling dynasty(the accession of Boris Godunov, accused by popular rumor of the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry - the last son of Ivan the Terrible), and the terrible famine of 1601-1603. The ferment intensified after the partial restoration of the peasants’ right to “exit” from their masters and decrees on the release of slaves whom their masters refused to feed. Crowds of fugitives and all kinds of “walking” people rushed to the south of the country, robberies became more frequent, which resulted in a major armed uprising in 1603 led by Cotton. This was the first stage of the civil war, when the leading role was played by former slaves. Its next period dates back to 1604-1606; its peculiarity is the participation in the struggle not only of serfs, but also of small servicemen, free Cossacks, peasants, townspeople, those who pinned their hopes for a better life on the establishment of a “good king” on the Russian throne - False Dmitry I (see Impostors in history Russia). After his short reign, which ended with an uprising in Moscow in May 1606, the third stage of the war began.
Ivan Bolotnikov stood at the head of a large rebel army that moved towards Moscow from the south of Russia in the summer of 1606. He came from minor nobles (“children of boyars”), and was a slave, a Don Cossack, and a rower on Turkish galleys. Calling himself “the governor of Tsar Dmitry,” Bolotnikov united the widest sections of the population, including the nobles of the southern Russian districts, who turned out to be unreliable allies, in the fight against the “boyar tsar” Vasily Shuisky. At the decisive moment of the battle near Moscow in December 1606, their troops went over to the side of the government, which led to the defeat of the uprising, despite heroic resistance its participants near Kaluga and Tula, which ended with the capture of Bolotnikov in October 1607 and his execution in Kargopol. Last stage The civil war in Russia took place between 1608-1615. At this time, mass armed uprisings took place in the center of the country, in the North, and in the Volga region. Adjacent to False Dmitry II, the lower classes hoped to receive relief from oppression from the “good king,” and the nobles hoped to receive new lands and privileges. It became an increasingly formidable force free Cossacks; it was actively forming not only on the outskirts, but also in central regions country (from among serfs, peasants, servicemen and townspeople) and openly claimed to replace itself in Russian state nobility. As it gets stronger Polish-Swedish intervention The popular movement increasingly switched into the mainstream of the national liberation struggle. The final chords of the longest civil war in Russian history were the Cossack uprisings against the government of Mikhail Romanov in 1614-1615. near Moscow and in Yaroslavl district.
The Time of Troubles delayed the formation of a national system of serfdom for half a century, but by the middle of the century this system nevertheless took shape, having received legal embodiment in the Council Code of 1649. In addition, in the second half of the 17th century. The situation of the lower masses was aggravated by the increase in taxes, labor duties and emergency fees for state needs, the deterioration of the financial situation in the country due to the crisis of the monetary system caused by the introduction of copper money, etc. The response to all this was the mass flight of peasants and townspeople from the center of the country to the south, especially to the Don, where feudal orders had not yet been established. However, the overcrowding of Cossack towns with naked food created the threat of famine and increased tension among the Cossacks themselves. In 1667, the “golutvennye” Cossacks of the Don united around Stepan Razin. Although he belonged to the “homely” Cossacks, he knew well the life of the poor people and sympathized with them. Razin's army, numbering more than a thousand people, went to the Volga, where they began to plunder river caravans, thus increasing not only the supplies of food and equipment, but also their numbers - due to the workers and archers who accompanied the ships and went over to Razin's side. With fighting, the Cossacks broke through to the Caspian Sea. They took the Yaitsky town by cunning, overwintered there, and in March 1668, having once again defeated the tsarist warriors sent against them and having received reinforcements from the Don, sailed to the western and south coast Caspian Sea. During the raids on the Persian possessions, the Razins captured many expensive goods, destroyed the Shah’s large fleet in a fierce battle, but in August 1669 they returned to the mouth of the Volga. By agreement with the tsarist authorities, on the terms of “repentance” and partial disarmament, the Cossacks were allowed to cross the Don through Astrakhan. The people greeted Razin and his “children” with jubilation, and they promised to soon free everyone from boyar oppression.
Razin returned to the Volga again in the spring of 1670, openly proclaiming the goal of the new campaign “to remove the traitorous boyars and duma people from the Moscow state and the governors and officials in the cities.” Tsaritsyn surrendered to the rebels without a fight. Supported by local residents Astrakhan was taken quite easily, and then Saratov and Samara. The struggle for Simbirsk dragged on, but with reaching this point, the peasant war acquired the widest and most widespread character. The rebels numbered about 200 thousand people in their ranks. Razin was joined mainly by peasants, including from the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region. Razin’s appeals to the “enslaved and disgraced”, “to all the mob” with a call to “bring out the worldly bloodsuckers” received a powerful response. Landowners' estates were set on fire, governors and other representatives of the tsarist administration, nobles and other hostile rich people were executed, their property was divided among themselves, order documents were destroyed, and a management system was introduced on the Cossack model. Razin atamans were active in Simbirsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov, Penza, Arzamas and other districts, in Unzha and Vetluga, in the Middle Don and Sloboda Ukraine. The rebels were planning to move to Moscow, where the “traitor boyars” allegedly deprived the “great sovereign” of the opportunity to learn about the troubles of the common people and committed all sorts of outrages in the royal name.
In October 1670, the core of the rebel army was defeated by government troops near Simbirsk. The seriously wounded Razin was taken by his comrades to the Don. There he was captured by the “homely” Cossacks and handed over to the tsarist authorities. On June 6, 1671, he was executed on the scaffold in Moscow. However, this did not yet mean the end of the peasant war. Popular uprising continued, sometimes even covering the central districts, and the last stronghold of the rebels - Astrakhan - fell only in November.
Historians often call the third peasant war the uprising led by Kondraty Bulavin in 1707-1708, although the Bulavin movement was mainly Cossack in composition and did not pursue the goal of seizing power throughout the country. At the same time, the uprising of 1707-1708. was a direct response of the grassroots to domestic policy Peter I (see Peter I and the reforms of the first quarter of the 18th century). A sharp increase in tax oppression and bureaucratic arbitrariness at the beginning of the 18th century. caused a huge influx of population to the Don, and attempts to forcefully return the fugitives to their former place of residence and limit the rights of the Cossacks led to a social explosion that spilled out beyond the Donskoy army. Peasants, townspeople and working people of Tambov, Kozlov, Voronezh, Penza, Belgorod and a number of other southern and central districts of Russia joined the struggle. The rebels smashed noble estates, occupied Tsaritsyn, Unzha, stormed Saratov and Azov. But there was no unity within the Cossacks. In July 1708, Bulavin was killed by conspirators from among the Don rich. Tsarist troops acted with extreme cruelty, destroying entire Cossack towns. However, they were able to cope with the Bulavinians only in 1710. Large group the rebellious Cossacks, led by Ignat Nekrasov, never submitted to the authorities and, together with their families, left for Russian borders- to Kuban.
The last and most powerful peasant war was started by the Yaik Cossacks (Yaik - former name r. Urals), on the ancient rights and liberties of which the autocracy launched an offensive in late XVIII V. The rebels in September 1773 were led by a fugitive Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev. He had rich combat experience of the Seven Years and Russian-Turkish war, learned well over the years of wandering the needs and aspirations of the people. Pugachev called himself emperor Peter III, allegedly hiding from persecution by the “boyars” and his wife Catherine. From Yaik, the uprising quickly spread to neighboring regions. “Tsar Peter Fedorovich” was supported by workers of the Ural factories, Bashkirs, and landowner peasants who dreamed of regaining their state status and who met with full understanding Pugachev’s calls to “exterminate all the nobles” and “inflict liberties throughout Russia.” IN total Hundreds of thousands of people took part in the uprising.
Its first stage was marked by a six-month siege of Orenburg and the defeat of government troops under the command of General Kara on the approaches to it. However, near Orenburg in the spring of 1774, Pugachev suffered a severe defeat, after which he left for the Urals, where the flames of the uprising flared up with renewed vigor. In July 1774 peasant army approached Kazan and occupied the entire city, with the exception of the Kremlin. Panic gripped the nobles living even in the center of the country. The hastily assembled troops defeated Pugachev, but he moved south along the right bank of the Volga and quickly assembled a new army from the peasants who flocked to him. True, their fighting qualities, in comparison with the Yaik Cossacks, Bashkir horsemen and even Ural workers, were extremely low. Pugachev, having taken several cities, tried to go to the Don. But the addition of part of the Don and Volga Cossacks, as well as Kalmyks, to the rebels did not save the situation. Defeated at Cherny Yar, Pugachev fled to the left bank of the Volga with a small group of comrades and was handed over to the authorities. In January 1775 he was executed in Moscow on Bolotnaya Square.
Each of the peasant (civil) wars in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries. had its own characteristics. Thus, the movement of the beginning of the 17th century. is considered the most “immature”, since the degree of social demarcation among the rebels was the least: runaway slaves and their former owners often found themselves in one anti-government camp. The social slogans of the rebels were also extremely unclear. In the movement led by Razin, the number of noble “fellow travelers” turned out to be much smaller, and Pugachev had practically none at all. These movements also differed in the degree of organization. However, it was spontaneity that was their main common feature. The rebel groups acted, as a rule, separately and uncoordinated. Government troops were invariably superior to the rebels in organization and armament, which predetermined the military defeat of the popular movements.
And yet, despite the fact that the peasant wars in Russia were doomed to defeat from the very beginning, they played a deeply progressive role in our history. A sharply expressed social protest forced the ruling class to limit its claims and not increase the degree of exploitation of the peasants to a level beyond which the country's productive forces would begin to be completely undermined. The threat of a new “Razinism” and “Pugachevism” ultimately forced the rulers of Russia into mid-19th V. to undertake reforms that ensured the transition to a new socio-economic system (see Alexander II and the reforms of the 60-70s of the 19th century).
In the 17th - 18th centuries. There were powerful popular uprisings that shook the social foundations of Russia to the core. In historical literature they are called “peasant wars,” which is largely arbitrary. The more correct term in this case is “civil wars,” because the peasants in them were not always the main active force; The goals of the movements were also broader and more complex, reflecting the interests of not only, and often not so much, the peasants. At the same time, singling out from the multitude of social actions those for which the name “peasant wars” has been assigned is quite justified. They were the highest form of class struggle in feudal Russia and differed from other popular uprisings primarily in their scale: huge masses of people were involved in the struggle, it covered vast territories and was accompanied by fierce battles. The rebels formed their own armies, local government bodies and, as a rule, sought to seize power throughout the country, creating a real threat to the prevailing order.
The first of these wars at the beginning of the 17th century. was a response to the serfdom policy of the authorities at the end of the 16th century. and the economic and political crisis in the country. The abolition of the right of peasants to “exit” on St. George’s Day, multiple increases in taxes and duties, the massive transformation of free people into slaves for debt, the seizure of peasant lands and unlimited feudal tyranny during the years of the oprichnina, devastation during the Livonian War, devastating epidemics - all this created an explosive situation. It became even more heated by the events associated with the change of the ruling dynasty (the accession of Boris Godunov, accused by popular rumor of the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, the last son of Ivan the Terrible), and the terrible famine of 1601 - 1603. The ferment intensified after the partial restoration of the peasants’ right to “exit” from their masters and decrees on the release of slaves whom their masters refused to feed. Crowds of fugitives and all kinds of “walking” people rushed to the south of the country, robberies became more frequent, which resulted in a major armed uprising in 1603 led by Cotton. This was the first stage of the civil war, when the leading role was played by former slaves. Its next period dates back to 1604 - 1606; its peculiarity is the participation in the struggle not only of serfs, but also of small servicemen, free Cossacks, peasants, townspeople, those who pinned their hopes for a better life on the establishment of a “good king” on the Russian throne - False Dmitry I (see Impostors in history Russia). After his short reign, which ended with an uprising in Moscow in May 1606, the third stage of the war began.
Ivan Bolotnikov stood at the head of a large rebel army that moved towards Moscow from the south of Russia in the summer of 1606. He came from minor nobles (“children of boyars”), and was a slave, a Don Cossack, and a rower on Turkish galleys. Calling himself “the governor of Tsar Dmitry,” Bolotnikov united the widest sections of the population, including the nobles of the southern Russian districts, who turned out to be unreliable allies, in the fight against the “boyar tsar” Vasily Shuisky. At the decisive moment of the battle near Moscow in December 1606, their troops went over to the side of the government, which led to the defeat of the uprising, despite the heroic resistance of its participants near Kaluga and Tula, which ended with the capture of Bolotnikov in October 1607 and his execution in Kargopol. The last stage of the civil war in Russia occurred in 1608 - 1615. At this time, mass armed uprisings took place in the center of the country, in the North, and in the Volga region. Adjacent to False Dmitry II, the lower classes hoped to receive relief from oppression from the “good king,” and the nobles hoped to receive new lands and privileges. The free Cossacks became an increasingly formidable force; they were actively forming not only on the outskirts, but also in the central regions of the country (from among serfs, peasants, servicemen and townspeople) and openly claimed to replace the nobility in the Russian state. As the Polish-Swedish intervention intensified, the popular movement increasingly switched to the mainstream of the national liberation struggle. The final chords of the longest civil war in the history of Russia were the Cossack protests against the government of Mikhail Romanov in 1614 - 1615 near Moscow and in the Yaroslavl district. .
The Time of Troubles delayed the formation of a national system of serfdom for half a century, but by the middle of the century this system nevertheless took shape, having received legal embodiment in the Council Code of 1649. In addition, in the second half of the 17th century. The situation of the lower masses was aggravated by the increase in taxes, labor duties and emergency fees for state needs, the deterioration of the financial situation in the country due to the crisis of the monetary system caused by the introduction of copper money, etc. The response to all this was the mass flight of peasants and townspeople from the center of the country to the south, especially to the Don, where feudal orders had not yet been established. However, the overcrowding of Cossack towns with naked food created the threat of famine and increased tension among the Cossacks themselves. In 1667, the “golutvennye” Cossacks of the Don united around Stepan Razin. Although he belonged to the “homely” Cossacks, he knew well the life of the poor people and sympathized with them. Razin's army, numbering more than a thousand people, went to the Volga, where they began to plunder river caravans, thus increasing not only the supplies of food and equipment, but also their numbers - due to the workers and archers who accompanied the ships and went over to Razin's side. With fighting, the Cossacks broke through to the Caspian Sea. They took the Yaitsky town by cunning, overwintered there, and in March 1668, having once again defeated the tsarist warriors sent against them and received reinforcements from the Don, they sailed to the western and southern coasts of the Caspian Sea. During the raids on the Persian possessions, the difference captured many expensive goods, destroyed the Shah’s large fleet in a fierce battle, but in August 1669 they returned (to the mouth of the Volga. By agreement with the tsarist authorities, on the terms of “repentance” and partial disarmament, the Cossacks were allowed to cross the Don Astrakhan. The people greeted Razin and his “children” with jubilation, and they promised to soon free everyone from boyar oppression.
Razin returned to the Volga again in the spring of 1670, openly proclaiming the goal of the new campaign “to remove the traitorous boyars and duma people from the Moscow state and the governors and officials in the cities.” Tsaritsyn surrendered to the rebels without a fight. With the support of local residents, Astrakhan was taken quite easily, and then Saratov and Samara. The struggle for Simbirsk dragged on, but with reaching this point, the peasant war acquired the widest and most widespread character. The rebels numbered about 200 thousand people in their ranks. Razin was joined mainly by peasants, including from the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region. Razin’s appeals to the “enslaved and disgraced”, “to all the mob” with a call to “bring out the worldly bloodsuckers” received a powerful response. Landowners' estates were set on fire, governors and other representatives of the tsarist administration, nobles and other hostile rich people were executed, their property was divided among themselves, order documents were destroyed, and a management system was introduced on the Cossack model. Razin atamans were active in Simbirsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov, Penza, Arzamas and other districts, in Unzha and Vetluga, in the Middle Don and Sloboda Ukraine. The rebels were planning to move to Moscow, where the “traitor boyars” allegedly deprived the “great sovereign” of the opportunity to learn about the troubles of the common people and committed all sorts of outrages in the royal name. In October 1670, the core of the rebel army was defeated by government troops near Simbirsk. The seriously wounded Razin was taken by his comrades to the Don. There he was captured by the “homely” Cossacks and handed over to the tsarist authorities. On June 6, 1671, he was executed on the scaffold in Moscow. However, this did not yet mean the end of the peasant war. The popular uprising continued, sometimes even covering the central districts, and the last stronghold of the rebels - Astrakhan - fell only in November.
Historians often call the third peasant war the uprising led by Kondraty Bulavin in 1707 - 1708, although the Bulavin movement was mainly Cossack in composition and did not pursue the goal of seizing power throughout the country. At the same time, the uprising of 1707 - 1708 was a direct response of the lower classes to the internal policies of Peter I (see Peter I and the reforms of the first quarter of the 18th century). A sharp increase in tax oppression and bureaucratic arbitrariness at the beginning of the 18th century. caused a huge influx of population to the Don, and attempts to forcefully return the fugitives to their former place of residence and limit the rights of the Cossacks led to a social explosion that spilled out beyond the Donskoy army. Peasants, townspeople and working people of Tambov, Kozlov, Voronezh, Penza, Belgorod and a number of other southern and central districts of Russia joined the struggle. The rebels destroyed noble estates, occupied Tsaritsyn and Unzha, and stormed Saratov and Azov. But there was no unity within the Cossacks. In July 1708, Bulavin was killed by conspirators from among the Don rich. The tsarist troops acted with extreme cruelty, destroying entire Cossack towns. However, they were able to cope with the Bulavinians only in 1710. A large group of rebellious Cossacks, led by Ignat Nekrasov, never submitted to the authorities and, together with their families, left Russian borders - to Kuban.
The last and most powerful peasant war was started by the Yaik Cossacks (Yaik is the former name of the Ural River), whose ancient rights and liberties the autocracy launched an offensive at the end of the 18th century. The rebels in September 1773 were led by the fugitive Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev. He had rich combat experience in the Seven Years and Russian-Turkish Wars, and over the years of wandering he became well acquainted with the needs and aspirations of the people. Pugachev introduced himself as Emperor Peter III, allegedly hiding from persecution by the “boyars” and his wife Catherine. From Yaik, the uprising quickly spread to neighboring regions. “Tsar Peter Fedorovich” was supported by workers of the Ural factories, Bashkirs, and landowner peasants who dreamed of regaining their state status and who met with full understanding Pugachev’s calls to “exterminate all the nobles” and “inflict liberties throughout Russia.” In total, hundreds of thousands of people took part in the uprising.
Its first stage was marked by a six-month siege of Orenburg and the defeat of government troops under the command of General Kara on the approaches to it. However, near Orenburg in the spring of 1774, Pugachev suffered a severe defeat, after which he left for the Urals, where the flames of the uprising flared up with renewed vigor. In July 1774, the peasant army approached Kazan and occupied the entire city, with the exception of the Kremlin. Panic gripped the nobles living even in the center of the country. The hastily assembled troops defeated Pugachev, but he moved south along the right bank of the Volga and quickly assembled a new army from the peasants who flocked to him. True, their fighting qualities, in comparison with the Yaik Cossacks, Bashkir horsemen and even Ural workers, were extremely low. Pugachev, having taken several cities, tried to go to the Don. But the addition of part of the Don and Volga Cossacks, as well as Kalmyks, to the rebels did not save the situation. Defeated at Cherny Yar, Pugachev fled to the left bank of the Volga with a small group of comrades and was handed over to the authorities. In January 1775 he was executed in Moscow on Bolotnaya Square.
Each of the peasant (civil) wars in Russia in the 17th - 18th centuries. had its own characteristics. Thus, the movement of the early 17th century. is considered the most “immature”, since the degree of social demarcation among the rebels was the least: runaway slaves and their former owners often found themselves in one anti-government camp. The social slogans of the rebels were also extremely unclear. In the movement led by Razin, the number of noble “fellow travelers” turned out to be much smaller, and Pugachev had practically none at all. These movements also differed in the degree of organization. However, it was spontaneity that was their main common feature. The rebel groups acted, as a rule, separately and uncoordinated. Government troops were invariably superior to the rebels in organization and armament, which predetermined the military defeat of the popular movements. And yet, despite the fact that the peasant wars in Russia were doomed to defeat from the very beginning, they played a deeply progressive role in our history. A sharply expressed social protest forced the ruling class to limit its claims and not increase the degree of exploitation of the peasants to a level beyond which the country's productive forces would begin to be completely undermined. The threat of a new “Razinism” and “Pugachevism” ultimately forced the rulers of Russia in the mid-19th century. to undertake reforms that ensured the transition to a new socio-economic system (see Alexander II and the reforms of the 60s - 70s of the 19th century).
