Among the peasant class of the 18th and 19th centuries, the most diverse groups stand out. Of particular interest are the possession and assigned peasants. This is a large part of the peasantry, which was officially considered the property of the state, but in fact was subjected to severe exploitation by the owners of factories and manufactories.
The history of the emergence of the category of assigned peasants
The 17th century in the history of Russia is the time of the emergence of the first shoots of capitalism. The emergence of manufactories, including mountain ones, in the Urals is attributed to the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The emergence of such a concept as assigned peasants is also connected with this fact. This is explained by the need to use workers in new enterprises under the conditions of serfdom that had just finally taken shape (in 1649). All the peasantry of that period were divided into two large groups: and the Chernososhny (state) ones.
The former could not freely be hired, the latter were reluctant to go to mining work due to the severity of the work. In conditions of a severe labor shortage, entrepreneurs turned to the state for help. The latter began to assign state-owned peasants to factories with the condition that the factory owners would also pay quitrent for them. Subsequently, the practice of attribution spread to state-owned factories.
The situation of peasants assigned to factories
Initially, the work of peasants assigned to factories was considered as corvée - that is, temporary assistance in auxiliary factory work, such as transporting firewood, coal, ore, iron. It was assumed that the peasants would have to work out the amount that the factory owners would pay to the state to pay off their taxes. But gradually everything changed. The factory administration increasingly attracted peasants to work, many of them became miners. These additional works were paid, but at a minimum.
Under Peter the Great, assigned peasants began to receive uniform wages throughout Russia for work in factories during summer field work. A peasant with a horse - 10 kopecks, and a horseless one - 5 kopecks. But, as usual in Russia, laws are not always implemented. And since it was necessary to work off a tax for each “male soul,” an adult member of the family could work for a whole year at the factory for the old father and young sons. Over time, plant administrations secured the right to punish the workers under their control. The assigned peasants perceived this as enslavement. There are many written sources with complaints about the breeders, and a more powerful argument is their participation in anti-government movements, especially in the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev. Thus, the position of the peasants assigned to the plant can be completely equated to serfdom.
Possessional peasants
Since 1649, the monopoly right of nobles and boyars to own peasants, including the possibility of buying and selling them, was consolidated. But Peter 1 was faced with the need to help the nascent bourgeoisie in resolving the issue of labor for their factories. Therefore, in 1721, a law was passed allowing non-nobles who were setting up their own private enterprises to purchase peasants for manufactories. This social group was called possession peasants. They could not be sold or mortgaged separately from the plant and their labor could not be used for other work. Thus, the feudal state solved the problem of a shortage of workers for the young Russian industry. Thus, in the 18th century, assigned peasants were not possession peasants. Subsequently, the relationship between terms changes.
Assigned and possessed peasants in the 19th century
By the end of the 18th century, the government stopped the practice of assigning workers to factories. This was explained by constant unrest in the Urals and complaints against the owners. In 1807, Alexander I took a step towards eliminating this group of peasants. Most of them were exempted from mandatory work in favor of the plant; the minimum necessary was left to ensure continuous operation. Unfortunately, this provision applied only to the Urals. In accordance with the regulations of 1807, the term “assigned peasants” disappears. This, however, did not mean that the exploitation of peasants in factories would be completely eliminated. The limited number of peasants who remained subordinate to the factory owners began to be called “essential workers.” They officially began to be equated with possession peasants. Only after the abolition, the Ural industry and other factories were forced to switch to civilian labor.
Some statistics
The first fact that peasants were assigned to factories dates back to 1633, and in quantitative terms there were a little more than three hundred people. This process took place most actively in the first half of the 18th century, after the modernization of Peter the Great. By the end of the 18th century, this category numbered more than 312 thousand people. After the reform of 1861, more than 170 thousand possession peasants received their freedom from the Tsar-Liberator.
Definition 1
It combined:
- state;
- palace;
- economic peasants.
Thus, both of these categories were united by the same type of activity - work in manufactories, plants or factories.
Industrial development of Russia in the XVII-XVIII centuries. lagged behind industrial development in the West. The first manufactories appeared in Russia in the 17th century, which indicated the transition to early capitalist industry. However, the development of industry was restrained by the serf system.
The fact is that European manufactories were created on the basis of free hiring, that is, the worker himself got a job, received money for his work and could just as freely move to another enterprise. In Russia, manufactories existed at the expense of serf labor, which were essentially patrimonial. They combined feudal-serf and bourgeois types of relations. The landowner was the owner of the manufactory, who managed both production and workers. The latter, having no means of production, existed by selling their own labor power, but this labor was forced.
Serfs and artisans were sent to work in production, which was one of the types of duties that serfs had to work off. Sometimes entire villages and hamlets were sent to the factory.
Thus, peasants became serf workers.
Possessional peasants
Manufactories were divided into several types: state-owned, dispersed, etc.
Private manufactories were called possessional (Latin posessio - possession). Manufactories of this type already existed in Moscow since the 17th century. and were under the jurisdiction of the Palace Order. They were based on possession rights and they were staffed by serfs - possession peasants who received benefits from the treasury in money, land, etc.
Note 1
The essence of possession rights was the transfer of peasants to entrepreneurs and industrialists of non-noble origin for the development of production at the factory.
In 1721, Peter I issued a decree allowing nobles and merchant manufacturers to acquire villages for manufactories. The peasants who inhabited these villages were not considered the direct property of the factory owners, but represented the living labor force of the factories, living equipment. They were attached to these factories in such a way that the owner of the manufactory did not have the right to sell or mortgage them separately from the manufactory.
- peasants bought to factories;
- state-owned artisans;
- “eternally given” peasants by decree of January 7, 1736
All of them formed a layer of “factory people”, and received the name “possession people” only in the 19th century. They could be sold by the old owners of manufactories and villages, along with the land on which the factories were built, and belonged to these manufactories.
Possession rights began to disappear in 1840, after the publication of a law that allowed the release of possession peasants. It was finally eliminated as a result of the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and by decree of 1863. At the same time, in some areas, possession rights to land ownership remained until 1917. Possession rights had a strong influence on the formation and development of Russian industry.
Assigned peasants
The situation was somewhat different among the assigned peasants. They represented a category of peasants who in the 17th-19th centuries. worked in factories and factories instead of paying quitrent and poll tax. They are called assigned because they were “attributed,” that is, attached to a certain manufacture. They could not be sold - they were assigned to factories not by villages, but by families, groups, individually, and they were formally owned by the previous owner.
Registered peasants appeared in the 17th century. with the spread of manufacturing in Russia. In order to support large-scale industry and provide it with cheap and constant power, the government began to actively assign peasants to various manufactories, located, as a rule, in the Urals and Siberia.
Most often, assigned peasants found themselves attached to the manufactory without a specific period of time, that is, forever. Also, recruits were recruited among the registered peasants, who later became foremen at mining and metallurgical plants.
The factories where the peasants worked were of two types - private and state-owned, but everywhere the position of the assigned peasants had to be the same.
Since they were recruited from state peasants, their formal owner was the state itself, however, in reality, the landowners treated them as their serfs, exploiting and punishing them.
As a result, this plight of the peasants resulted in numerous unrest, uprisings and escapes. For this reason, at the end of the 18th century. the government ceases to assign peasants to manufactories, and in the 19th century. The situation of assigned peasants is improving. In 1807, a decree was issued according to which the assigned peasants at the mining factories of the Urals began to be freed from forced factory work. At the same time, at the beginning of the 19th century, under the name “indispensable workers,” the assigned peasants became part of the sessional peasants.
Note 2
The dependence of the assigned peasants was also eliminated as a result of the abolition of serfdom and subsequent decrees of 1861-1863.
So, in the position of possession and serf peasants there are both similarities and differences. Both of them worked in plants and factories, forming a layer of the working class, and were subsequently freed by the reform of 1861. Possessed people were sold by entire villages and sent to the factory, while those assigned to them could exist alone, as a family, etc. and found themselves assigned specifically to a specific plant.
Main articles: Russian peasants, Society under Peter I
see Tax reform of Peter I
First population census and introduction of passports
In order to take into account the number of people in the country who must pay the per capita tax, a population census (audit) was conducted for the first time in the history of Russia. These lists were called revision tales. In 1724, passports were introduced, which allowed the state to provide a system of control over its subjects and limit the possibilities of movement around the country.
Demidov factories. During the time of Peter I, one of the largest private owners of manufactories was Nikita Demidov. He produced iron at the Ural Nevyanovsky factories, which he sold to the state for the needs of the army. Often fugitives were used at Demidov's factories. In this way they evaded justice, and Demidov did not pay taxes for them, because they were not accounted for anywhere. The life of such workers was very difficult. They lived in basements that could easily be flooded if a government check on the number of workers suddenly came.
State peasants
Under Peter the Great, the composition of state peasants changed. These included, as before, the black-growing peasants of the Russian North; local population and Russian settlers in Siberia; peoples of the Volga region. However, some of the former service people also switched to the position of state peasants, who paid a per capita tax. Thus, under Peter, all rural residents who did not belong to secular and church owners were united into a single estate. State peasants bore the burden. They were considered free subjects of the state.
Serfs
However, the monarch could “grant” (donate) state lands to his associates for their merits. And the state peasants who lived on them could thus become serfs. This began to happen in post-Petrine times.
Privately owned peasants (patrimonial, monastic, patriarchal, etc.) became a single group of serfs. Servitude as a class was eliminated. Serfs merged with serfs. The country became almost entirely serfdom.
Assigned peasants
The increase in the number of state-owned manufactories under Peter I required providing them with labor. A decree from the tsar followed - to “assign” black-powder peasants to manufactories so that they would work there for several months a year. And the wages due to them were counted as taxes to the state. Such serfs were called “assigned”. Material from the site http://wikiwhat.ru
Possessional peasants
Tsar Peter I encouraged the development of private manufactories, the owners of which were close to him. Their owners were allowed to buy entire villages, own them and use the peasants of these villages to work in factories. Such peasants began to be called possessions (from the word “possession” - I own). “Eternally given” were the students who were enslaved by their owners “in payment” for training in blue-collar skills.
Life of people under Peter I
see Life of people under Peter I
Material from the site http://WikiWhat.ru
On this page there is material on the following topics:
State peasants under Peter the Great
Rights and obligations of peasants under Peter 1 table
Life of local residents under Peter 1
Life of peasants in the 18th century in Shadrinsk
What did peasants eat during the time of Peter 1?
Transformations required constant funds. The tax burden constantly increased and reached such proportions that almost immediately after the death of the emperor (who, by the way, was proud that he was giving the power to his heirs without public debt), the Senate (an unprecedented case) recognized the impossibility of fulfilling all financial obligations to the state in full, i.e.
e. “de facto” he wrote off a significant part of the existing debts to the treasury.
Since the agricultural sector remained the economic basis of budget formation, land policy activities were oriented in the interests of increasing the efficiency of tax collection.
Instead of estates and estates, a new concept of “real estate” or “estate” was introduced.
In 1714, landowners received the right to complete and unlimited disposal of land, without being obliged, as before, to serve in government positions and maintain a local army.
In order to strengthen feudal land ownership and protect it from fragmentation in order to maintain the profitability of estates, the Decree “On Single Inheritance in Real Estate” was issued, according to which land ownership was to be inherited by one (usually the eldest) of the owner’s sons.
(This innovation did not take root in life. Until 1917, fragmentations and mergers (but more often, still fragmentations) were an “economic scourge” that did not allow landowners to switch to capitalist production, and led to the impoverishment of a significant part of the nobility.
Under Peter I, the system of collecting land taxes was changed. With the introduction of the per capita tax instead of the land tax, the tax collection system was significantly simplified, since the need for quantitative and qualitative land records was eliminated, the costs of collecting taxes were reduced, and the entire working population was involved in payments, which served to increase state revenues.
Another transformation of land relations carried out by Peter I was the secularization (withdrawal in favor of the state) of part of the monastic, church and synodal lands; a number of decrees were issued limiting the growth of church and monastic land ownership.
Previously, the government protected peasants from a direct transition into servitude by establishing “peasant eternity,” that is, a ban on the transition of peasants to other class categories, not excluding serfs.
Slaves did not pay taxes. By protecting the peasants from becoming serfs, the government retained state tax payers.
In 1695, by decree of Tsar Peter, they began to take taxes from the lands cultivated by slaves. By imposing on the arable slaves the same burden that the peasants bore, the government, one might say, equated one to the other.
By decree of January 22, 1719, only peasants and arable slaves were included in the tax lists. In subsequent years, the census further expands its scope and includes slaves of all types in its lists or tales.
peasants under Peter 1
In 1723, all household servants were included in the census, even if they did not plow the land and were only in the personal service of their masters.
In 1722, after the states of the clergy were established in rural and urban churches, all clergy and clerics were recorded in the poll tales of the owners on whose lands they lived
POSSESSIONAL - serf peasants in Russia in the 18th - 1st half of the 19th centuries. , assigned to possessional manufactories. Possession peasants could not be sold separately from the enterprise. The category of possession peasants was introduced under Peter I in 1721 due to the need to provide workers for the growing large-scale manufacture. The possessional peasants included peasants bought to the “factories”, “eternally given away” by decree of January 7, 1736, and state-owned artisans transferred to the owners of possessional manufactories.
ASSIGNED PEASANTS - in Russia in the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries, state, palace and economic peasants, instead of paying the poll tax, worked in state-owned or private plants and factories, that is, attached (assigned) to them. At the end of the 17th century. and especially in the 18th century. The government, in order to support large-scale industry and provide it with cheap and constant labor, widely practiced assigning state peasants to manufactories in the Urals and Siberia. Usually, assigned peasants were attached to manufactories without a specific period, that is, forever. Formally they remained the property of the feudal state, but in practice the industrialists exploited and punished them as their serfs. At the end of the 18th century, the government stopped assigning peasants to factories again. By decree of 1807, assigned peasants at the Ural mining factories began to be freed from mandatory factory work. At the beginning of the 19th century, assigned peasants called “essential workers” entered the category of POSSESSIONAL peasants, which was liquidated in 1861-1863. with the abolition of serfdom.
POLL TAX - a form of tax, tax, which was imposed on all men of the tax-paying classes, regardless of age: both newborns and old people, for the maintenance of the army. The cost of maintaining soldiers was divided by the number of available tax souls.
Craft workshops were a trade and craft corporation that united masters of one or more similar professions, or a union of medieval artisans based on their professional background. In Russia, a system of guilds by profession was introduced during the reign of Peter I, which lasted for almost 200 years. Each workshop had its own administration. Belonging to the workshop could be temporary or permanent. From 3 to 5 years, the craftsman worked as an apprentice, then received the title of journeyman; for the title of master, he had to present an approved masterpiece - a “sample of work.” All workshops in the city were in charge of the craft council.
