home Economy Books History of the world economy - Polyak GB

History of the world economy - Polyak GB

32.3. Development of agriculture

The achieved level of economic development did not allow Russia to compete successfully with advanced countries. Since 1905, agriculture has become a priority for the country's economic development. In the early XX century. Russia continued to remain an agrarian country. In the total volume of production, agriculture occupied a dominant position. Three quarters of the population was employed in agricultural production. The peasantry was the most numerous estate, its share in the social structure of Russian society was 84%.

Agriculture largely determined the standard of living of the population. Therefore, without a successful solution of the problems of agriculture, intensive development of the country was not possible. In agricultural use, there were 469.4 million dessiatines of land. The distribution for different regions of the country was not the same. For example, in 11 districts of European Russia the land was distributed as follows: state, specific, church and institutional land - 39.1%, allotment land - 35.1% and private ownership - 25.8%.

Owners of the land

By the beginning of XX century. Landlords lost 1/10 of the land, but still remained the main owners of the land. 30 thousand noble families on average owned 2,333 dessiatines of land. In total, 70 million dessiatines were in the hands of large landowners, which accounted for 25% of all registered land. From 1906 to 1916 years. The landlords sold 9.5 million dessiatines of land to the peasant bank, and 8.8 million dessiatines were mortgaged in a noble bank. Nevertheless, the landlords owned huge landed estates. On the centralization of land in the ownership of individuals, Russia occupied the first place in Europe. Large latifundia were centers of concentration of capital in agriculture and carriers of semi-feudal exploitation of the peasantry. In addition to the nobility, peasants, merchants and burghers owned private property on the land. Private-owned farms acted as farmers and had the opportunity to use agricultural machines, artificial fertilizers, employ wage labor.

Stratification of the peasantry

In the communal and household ownership of the peasants there were 137 million acres of land. Of these, 64 million dessiatins accounted for 2.1 million wealthy peasant households, while the other part, 73 million dessiatins, accounted for 10.5 poor peasant households. Due to the natural growth of the population, the size of the per capita peasant allotment was sharply reduced. If at the end of the XIX century. He averaged 3.5 dessiatins per capita, then in 1905 - 2.6 dessiatins. 53.5 million peasants had an allotment of 1 to 1.75 acres of land per capita. The purchase of land by peasants increased in volume. At the same time, by 1905, only 490,000 peasant households had bought land. The well-off part of the peasantry concentrated 3/4 of the purchased land. Most of the peasant households acquired small plots of land, which did not significantly expand their allotments. Malozemelie forced the peasants to lease land from the landlords. Poor peasants often could not reimburse the value of the labor invested in processing rented land. The debts of the peasants grew. According to the Ministry of Finance, debts only on redemption payments could be repaid in the 30s of the XX century.

There was a process of stratification of the peasantry . There was a washing out of the middle peasantry, from which, on the one hand, the prosperous peasantry stood out, on the other hand, a broader stratum of poor peasants who went to find work in the city or in landlord farms. At the end of XIX century. There were 3.5 million agricultural workers. Their number constantly increased. The labor of agricultural workers was paid low, the length of the working day was not determined. In poor harvest years, the wages of agricultural laborers fell sharply.

The conditions in which the peasant economy was located enabled the landlords to cultivate the land with cheap peasant labor, renting out land to him or granting a loan. Rent performed in monetary, profitable and developmental forms. The rent was 81% of net income from one tenth of the land. Every year peasants paid hundreds of millions of rubles for rented land. Therefore, the majority of the landlords did not aspire to the restructuring of their farms to the capitalist mode. Harvest was low, especially in the farms of the bulk of the peasants. So, the wheat yield in various countries was: in Russia - 55 poods per dessiatine, in Germany - 157, in Belgium - 168. A similar pattern was for other crops.

The growth of agricultural production took place slowly and extensively. In the early XX century. The total sown area in 62 provinces increased from 81.2 million dessiatins to 138.0 million dessiatines due to development of the lands of the Trans-Volga region, southern steppe regions, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Siberia. Export of agricultural products increased in monetary terms from 701 million rubles. In the years 1901-1905. Up to 1126 million rubles. In 1911-1913.

Agriculture was subject to general trends in the economic life of Russian society, the development of agriculture was in close connection with the development of industry.

Capitalization of agriculture

Agriculture underwent capitalization, which was carried out mainly under the influence of rising prices for agricultural products in the domestic and foreign markets. The development of capitalism in agriculture was evidenced by the tendency of production growth, expansion of its marketability. By 1905, 47 per cent of all marketable grain was produced in landlord farms, in peasant farms - about 50 per cent. Kulak farms, accounting for 1/6 of the peasant households, gave 38% of the gross grain harvest.

For the production of grain crops, Russia occupied the first or one of the first places in the world. In the world production of bread in 1913, Russia accounted for more than 1/2 rye, more than 1/4 of wheat and oats, and about 38% of barley.

The area under crops increased and crops were harvested for technical crops. From 1909 to 1913 years. The collection of potatoes increased by 124.4%, flax fiber - by 133.9%, beets - 158.7%, tobacco - 161.7% of sunflower - 205.4%. Significant growth was in the gross production of beets in the Kursk and Kharkov gubernias, while the crops and harvest especially increased in peasant farms. In 1911, the processing of beets produced 281 plants, and in 1913 - 293.

Cotton-cleaning plant in Turkestan

The overwhelming part of the landed estates (80.6%) employed wage labor. The larger the economy, the higher the percentage of wage labor. Farms with a land size of more than 5000 dessiatines were completely based on wage labor. There were exemplary farms with a larger area of ​​land organized in a capitalist manner and specializing in grain production. Such farms were formed in the steppe provinces of the South and the Trans-Volga region, which were finally defined as regions for the production of grain for export to the foreign market. Central, northern and Baltic regions specialized in the production of meat and dairy cattle. The lands of the north-western provinces were occupied under the crops of flax, the Central Chernozem zone and Ukraine became areas for the production of sugar beet. Central Asia became the main supplier of cotton. Cotton crops from 1907 to 1914. Increased from 342 to 508 thousand acres, and cotton harvest - from 18 to 29 million poods. In 1913, Central Asian cotton satisfied 55% of the needs of Russian industry.

The development of capitalist relations in the village was evidenced by the growth of the cooperative movement. From 1900 to 1914 years. The number of various cooperatives increased 18 times and amounted to 12,165. Cooperatives contributed to the strengthening of the material and technical base of agriculture, its intensification and sale of agricultural products.

However, in general, agriculture was backward. Agricultural machines, artificial fertilizers were used little and only in advanced landed estates. The methods of cultivating the land were primitive, the village harrow and the plow remained the most common tools in agricultural production. In 1910, there were 7.9 million sokh, 5.7 million wooden harrows and 3 million wooden plows. The number of horseless and single-peasant farms increased. In 1912, they amounted to 8.4 million farms (in 1900 - 5.6 million farms). The consumption of bread per capita decreased. In 1911 the harvest was poor - 30 million peasants were starving. All this caused a low yield, a general backwardness of the country and social tension in the society. In the early XX century. The struggle of the peasantry against the landowners for land was intensified. In the course of the 1905-1907 revolution, despite the contradictions between the various strata of the peasantry, it emerged as a united front against landlordism and semi-serfdom.

The agrarian reform of PA. Stolypin

Since 1905, the policy of the tsarist government has increased attention to the agrarian sector of the economy. But the government did not have a single approach to the agrarian question. Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Plehve, expressing the mood of the reactionary nobility, stood for the class distinctiveness of the peasantry, the inviolability of the rural community, in the preservation of which the state was interested for a long time. It used the community for guaranteed collection of payments. S.Yu. Witte considered it necessary to create more favorable conditions for the development of capitalism in the countryside.

After 1905 it became obvious that further implementation of the state's protective and protective policy in the countryside is impossible.

He took the upper hand to the creation of a "strong individual owner", aimed at preserving the rule of the landlords. From the policy of communal land ownership, the tsarist government passed to the destruction of the community, the consolidation of the land in the private ownership of the peasant and the creation of a hamlet and bran farm. Landowner's ownership of land remained intact. The developer and executor of the new agrarian reform was the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia PA. Stolypin, who was trying to implement radical changes in agriculture.

The reform was initiated by the Emperor's decree of November 9, 1906, which, after discussion in the State Duma, the State Council and approval on June 14, 1910, became the emperor's law. The law was supplemented by a decree according to which all communities where there were no land redistributions for the last 24 years were considered to have passed to the inheritance-and-shareholding, and the plots in use by the peasants became their personal property. On May 29, 1911, a law on land management was adopted, designed to accelerate the destruction of the community.

"While the peasant is poor," P.A. Stolypin, while he does not possess personal landed property, while he is forcibly in the grip of the community, he will remain a slave and no written law will give him the blessing of civil freedom. "

The implementation of the law was entrusted to the created provincial and district land management commissions, consisting of officials, zemstvo vowels and peasants.

In accordance with the law, "every householder who owns allotment land on community law may at any time demand the reinstatement of personal property belonging to him from the said land." The law contained a provision on the formation of the bran and farm economy.

The peasants who left the community had the right to reduce all their allotments in one cut and to transfer their residential and farm buildings out of it, forming a farm.

Stolypin stressed that "a small landowner ... hard-working, possessing a sense of dignity will bring to the village and culture, and education, and prosperity."

From 1905 to 1916 years. From the community there were about 2.5 million householders, (including 470 thousand households in unoccupied communities, of which the exit was mandatory), which accounted for 22% of all peasant farms owning 14% of the total communal land. The community was left by well-to-do peasants and poor peasants who were interested in securing land ownership with the aim of further selling 1.2 million householders, or 60% of those who separated from the community and owned 8.8% of all allotment land, sold their plots. In 1915 the farms accounted for only 10.3% of all peasant holdings. This indicated that it was not possible to create a layer of peasant farmers and destroy an outdated community that hampered the development of capitalist relations in agriculture, especially since in the overwhelming majority the exit from the community was limited to the consolidation of allotment and estates into personal property.

Land management of peasant allotment and private land

Another component of the Stolypin agrarian reform, designed to destroy the community, was the massive resettlement of peasants from the interior provinces beyond the Urals. This measure made it possible to ease tensions in providing peasants with land in the central part of Russia, facilitating the development of new lands, and the development of capitalism. Initially, the resettlement policy was carried out quite actively. In the years 1907-1909. The number of migrants was 1.708 million people, but in subsequent years the rate decreased. The resettlers received a cash benefit of 200 rubles. For a family, a plot of land at the rate of 15 hectares per head of the family and 15 hectares for the rest of the family. In total, in the period from 1905-1910. Moved more than 3 million people. However, the settlers faced great difficulties: they died a lot on the way, others went bankrupt, while others on arrival confirmed that the land they had promised was occupied, etc. Therefore, more than 500 thousand, or 17% of the migrants, returned from Siberia only back . In the national regions of Russia, in order to resettle the settlers, they took away land from the indigenous population.

With all its shortcomings, the resettlement policy was of progressive significance: more than 30 million dessiatines of empty lands were developed, thousands of villages and villages appeared, credit, supply-and-supply cooperatives were created. In 1907, the Union of Siberian butter-producing cooperatives was formed, and in 1912 - the cooperative Moscow Bank, which performed not only financial functions, but also coordinated the activities of local cooperatives.

The instrument for implementing the Stolypin reform was the land purchase and sale operation carried out by the Peasant Bank . This strengthened the process of redistributing land in favor of wealthy peasants. The peasant bank bought more than 5.4 million dessiatines, of which 77.4% belonged to the nobles, 14.2% to merchants and honorary citizens, 1.7% to peasants, and 7.7% to other estates. By 1917, the landowners had only slightly more than half of the lands that belonged to them according to the status of 1861. By 1915, the peasants had sold about 4 million dessiatines of allotment land. The land was sold by peasants who broke with agriculture and rushed to the city in search of work, as well as settlers.

Stolypin's agrarian reform was progressive: it replaced the obsolete, semi-feudal economic structures with new ones that enabled the intensive development of capitalism in agriculture.