Permission to purchase peasants to work in manufactories. The legal status of the peasantry at the end of the XYII - XYIII century
The decree of 1721 legalized the practice of buying peasants by large industrialists (usually merchants). The right to buy peasants for manufactories was the most important privilege granted by the government of Peter I to the merchants.
Manufacturers owned the purchased peasants on a conditional, limited right: they could not sell, mortgage and inherit them separately from the manufactory to which they were bought.
Such peasants at the end of the XVIII century. began to be called possession (from lat. possessio - "possession", "rent"). The decree of 1721 was canceled in 1762, when Catherine II restored the monopoly right of the nobles to own serfs. In 1798, Paul I again renewed this decree.
After all, at least according to the previous decrees, it was forbidden for merchants to buy villages, and then that prohibition was for the sake of the fact that, apart from the merchants, they did not have any other factories for the benefit of the state; and now, according to our decrees, as everyone can see, that many merchants in companies, and especially many, have managed to increase the state benefit to start again various factories, namely: silver, copper, iron, needle and other similar ones, and also silk ones, and linen, and woolen factories, of which many have already taken place in action.
For this reason, it is allowed by our decree, for the reproduction of such factories, both for the gentry 79, and for merchants, to buy villages from those factories without restriction, with the permission of the berg and the manufactory college, only under such a condition 80, so that those villages will always be already at those factories incessantly.
And in order, both to the gentry and to the merchants, those villages especially without factories should by no means be sold or mortgaged to anyone, and no fantasies should be secured for anyone, and such villages should not be given to anyone for redemption, unless someone wants to meet their necessary needs. villages and with those factories to sell, then to sell with the permission of the berg and the manufactory college. And if anyone acts against this, then deprive him of all that irrevocably.
And if someone starts factories only for the face of 81 small ones, so that he can buy villages from those from whom, and by no means allow such fictitious people to make that purchase, and watch him firmly in the berg-manufactory-collegium; and if they appear, they should be fined at their discretion by taking away all movable and immovable property.
Articles and research
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Koretsky V.I. From the history of the enslavement of peasants in Russia at the end of the 16th-beginning of the 17th century.
Skrynnikov R.G. Protected and lesson years of Tsar Fyodor Ioanovich
Yatskin I. V. Bonded servility.
Klyuchevsky V.O. History of estates in Russia
Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history. Full course of lectures. Lecture 49
Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history. Full course of lectures: Lecture 37.
Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history. Full course of lectures: Lecture 65.
Zakharova L.G., Druzhinin N.M. State peasants
Smirnov I.P. Posad people and their class struggle until the middle of the 17th century.
Despite the resistance of the nobility and bureaucracy, the peasantry as an economic factor played more and more important role. Along with this, serf labor prevailed over free labor.
This was facilitated by the fact that a strong sector of state industry is based on the labor of serfs. Peasant duties (corvee days) were not regulated by law, which increased arbitrariness. The exploitation of unplowed peasants (artisans, otkhodniks) was not profitable for the landlords, so they prevented the non-agricultural economic activities of the peasants. The migration of peasants was severely limited: the fertile southern lands were mastered by landlords and runaway peasants; individual farming did not develop there (this was prevented by the legal one: equalization of single-dwellers with state peasants).
The obligation to pay a per capita tax and a quitrent tax, in addition to the property (serfs), from 1719 was extended to black-haired peasants, single-palace residents, Ukrainians, Tatars and yasak people, and from 1724 to all those who fell into the census books. All this mass of peasants belonged to the state.
By this time, an all-Russian market had already taken shape, the center of trade relations of which was Moscow. 1 traded merchants, landowners and peasants. The attitude of the legislator towards the trading peasants is characteristic - along with the establishment of permits and benefits for them, the law was constantly inclined to restrict this activity. In 1711, privileges were established for peasants trading in cities, but already in 1722 village traders were forbidden to trade in cities. In 1731, the peasants were forbidden to trade in ports, produce industrial goods and take contracts. In 1723, restrictions were set for recording peasants in the settlement. Since 1726, the issuance of passports to otkhodnik peasants began. Peasants were not allowed to sign up as volunteers for the army (1727) and take an oath (1741). In 1745, a Decree was issued allowing peasants to trade in the villages, and in 1748 they received the right to join the merchant class.
The black-eared peasants, who lived in a community, retained ownership of the arable land, mowing and land that they cultivated; could sell them, pawn, give as a dowry. They paid the state a cash quitrent and performed duties in kind. the non-Russian population of the Volga and Ural regions, in addition, paid yasak (tribute in kind) to the state. a special group of government
the peasants were single-dvortsy (who did not fall into the Khetstvo, they came from Moscow service people). They paid poll and quitrent taxes; from 1713 they served in the landmilitia, which performed police functions until 1783.
State peasants had the right to move to other estates, change their place of residence, participate in state meetings, and were often exempted from taxes. At the same time, their lands remained the object of encroachment on the part of the landlords. The distribution of state lands to private owners was suspended in 1778 (in the process of boundary reorganization) and in 1796, when it was forbidden to sell state lands.
Privately owned peasants in the 18th century. constituted the majority of the peasant population. The palace peasants living on the palace lands were in the administration of the palace office (since 1775 - state chambers). From among the palace peasants by the beginning of the XVIII century. Sovereign peasants were allocated, in 1797 transferred to the jurisdiction of the Department of Appanages.
The most numerous was the group of landlord peasants. The sources of enslavement included birth, registration by revision, the fixing of illegitimate foundlings by educators, prisoners of war of non-Christian origin (until 1770) and participants in anti-government uprisings. Serfdom could arise under contracts of sale, exchange, donation (until 1783).
The termination of the serfdom was associated with the serving of recruitment duty (the wife and children of the recruit were also released), the exile of the serf to Siberia, leave on a vacation letter or spiritual will, ransom, the seizure of the landowner's estate to the treasury, the return of the serf from captivity, flight to remote outskirts and recording in state volosts, factories and plants (since 1759). A peasant who denounced his landowner, who concealed his serf souls during the census, received the right to find a new master or become a soldier.
The position of the fortresses. The decree of 1769 emphasized that the lands on which the possessing peasants lived belonged not to them, but to their owners. The feudal labor of the peasants was expressed in corvee (starting from the 19th century, it was limited to three days a week), “month” (when the peasant worked for the master all week, receiving a monthly provision for this) and dues in cash.
A large number of serfs are the yard people of the landowner, who were supported by the community. Part of the landowning peasants was released for quitrent or rented out (for a period of up to five years). Ever since the end of the 17th century. landowners were given the right to sell
peasants without land, mortgage them, donate them, bequeath them, exchange them for property, pay them off for debts. The decrees of 1717 and 1720, which allowed the recruitment of hired people, further intensified human trafficking.
The landlords could move serfs from one state to another (from yard to plow), from one village to another - for this, starting from 1775, an application was required to the upper zemstvo court and the payment of tax for a year. The landowners allowed the marriages of serfs (the Decree of 1724 on the prohibition of forced marriage was not actually applied), those who married without the permission of the landowner were considered fugitives. Certain amounts were allocated for the purchase of suitors from other estates.
A serf could purchase real estate only in the name of the landowner. Those who had a shop or a factory paid a land tax to the landowner. Peasant property was inherited only through the male line and in agreement with the landowner. they could acquire populated lands in the name of the landowner, ik (from the 60s of the 18th century).
The registration of serfs in the guild (since 1748) was carried out on the basis of a holiday certificate, issued to the master. Since 1785, peasant trade was limited to products of their own production. Since 1774, the absence of a peasant from his place of residence was allowed only if he had a passport issued by the governor.
The Senate Decree of 1758 gave landlords the right to fine peasants, subject them to corporal punishment (sticks and rods), and imprisonment in patrimonial prisons. Since 1760, the landowners received the right, through the mediation of local authorities, to send peasants to Siberia, since 1765 - to hard labor for any period. Peasants could be sent to penitentiary houses and recruits.
The return of fugitive peasants (by decrees of 1661 and 1662) was accompanied by a fine for the landowners who accepted them - several peasants were taken from him. For the peasants themselves, escape was punished with a whip or hard labor. Malicious harborers of the fugitives (landlords and clerks) were punished by confiscation of property.
"Economic" peasants. For the opportunity to manage the monastery peasants, whose number at the end of the 17th century. was significant, a struggle broke out between the Synod and the College of Economy, which ended only in 1764. All church and monastery peasants were transferred to the College of Economy and began to be called "economic" peasants.
Unlike privately owned, they could not be subjected to arbitrary resettlement, but, like the first, they were recruited and punished with whips. From their midst stood out bishops and monastic servants who served life-long corvée instead of recruitment and quitrent duties. In 1786, this category of peasants was equated with the state.
Assigned (possession) peasants. In 1721, a Decree was issued allowing merchants and breeders to acquire populated villages in order to provide workers for the enterprises that were being created. In 1752, the Decree determined the number of peasants who could be acquired to work in factories, but already in 1762 such a purchase was prohibited: only civilians with passports could work in factories. Then (in 1798) followed by a new permit for the acquisition of serfs for production (in the Decree of 1797, these peasants were called possessive), which was valid until 1816.
Since 1722, it was also allowed to register fugitives and newcomers working in factories and plants; in 1736, the craftsmen who worked for them were forever assigned to the enterprises, and compensation was paid to their owners. But in 1754, a Decree was issued that allowed the owners of assigned peasants to claim them back. The assigned fugitives remained behind the factories, but it was forbidden to accept new fugitive peasants from now on. According to the instructions of 1743, illegitimate and "staggering commoners" were equated with ascribed (possession) ones.
Posessional peasants could not be sold separately from factories, transferred from factory to factory, set free, mortgaged or recruited for serfs. They performed recruiting duties, paying taxes, paid a poll tax, manufacturers could apply corporal punishment and exile to Siberia. A decree of 1754 granted the right to breeders to recruit artisans, and in 1775 the Senate recognized this category of peasants as privately owned.
By order of the Berg and Manufactory Collegiums, part of the state peasants was transferred to the breeders. Unlike those assigned to factories forever, for a period (five years) some categories of the poor and "walking" people were assigned. If these latter were equated in position with serfs, then the former state peasants assigned to factories, from 1796 restore their status
Changes in social structure Russian society the period of absolutism (in its early stages) led to the emergence of a new social stratum associated with the capitalist development of the economy. Small crafts and manufactories formed the basis for its appearance. Since the majority of manufactories were privately owned, the question of labor became especially acute for the emerging entrepreneurship.
The legislator, taking into account the state interest in the development of industry, took a number of measures aimed at solving the problem.
A procedure was established for registering state peasants (in the public sector of the economy) with manufactories and buying them with land, with the obligatory use of their labor in manufactories (in the private sector). These categories of peasants receive the name of ascribed and possessive.
In 1736, entrepreneurs were given permission to buy peasants without land, especially for use in industry, since 1744 they can be purchased by entire villages. Wage growth in industrial production stimulated the process of registering peasants (a significant part of their earnings came through taxes to the treasury and through dues to landowners).
There were measures by which bonded peasants could get away from work at manufactories: pay off by paying certain amounts, or put hired people in their place. Most of ascribed was formed from privately owned peasants and peasants, assigned by the Decree of 1736.
The differentiation of the peasantry led to the isolation of wealthy people from its environment: manufacturers, usurers and merchants. This process ran into many obstacles of a socio-psychological, economic and legal nature.
Peasant withdrawal was limited to owners interested in the exploitation of peasants in the corvée. At the same time, the increase in quitrents stimulated landowners to use the labor of peasants on the side, in waste. For industrialists, the prohibition to sell peasants without land and at retail (1721) made it difficult to use their labor in enterprises and manufactories.
The management of ascribed peasants was carried out by the Berg and Manufactory colleges. The sale of these peasants was allowed only together with manufactories. Such an organizational measure was possible only under the conditions of the feudal regime and, in nature, resembled the attachment of the townspeople to the towns, and the peasants to the land, carried out Cathedral Code 1649 It prevented the redistribution of labor within the industry and beyond, did not stimulate an increase in labor productivity and its quality. However, this turned out the only way under those conditions, to form a contingent of labor force in industry, to create a "pre-proletariat".
In the same year, the government stopped the assignment of peasants to enterprises. The labor market began to take shape. To late XVIII in. there were more than 400 thousand hired workers in Russia.
Manufactories, founded after 1762 by persons of non-noble origin, already worked exclusively on free labor. In 1767, farming and monopolies in industry and trade were abolished. A further impetus to the development of handicrafts and industry was given by the decree of 1775, which permitted peasant industry. This led to an increase in the number of breeders from merchants and peasants who invested their capital in industry. Buy bags for moving cheap Moscow buy paper cups in bulk buy bauly.online.
Thus, the process of the formation of capitalist production relations has become irreversible. However, it must always be remembered that the design and further development the capitalist way of life took place in a country dominated by serfdom, which had a huge impact on the forms, ways and pace of the formation of capitalism.
Domestic and foreign trade. Specialization in various branches of economic activity has become even more noticeable. Bread of the Chernozem Center and Ukraine, wool, leather, Volga fish, Ural iron, handicrafts of the Non-Cherenozem region, salt and fish of the North, flax and hemp of the Novgorod and Smolensk lands, furs of Siberia and the North were constantly exchanged at numerous auctions and fairs. They were located at the junction of economic regions and trade flows in Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Irbit, Nezhin (Ukraine), Kursk, Arkhangelsk, etc. The abolition of internal customs duties since 1754 contributed to the development of the all-Russian market.
Through the ports of the Baltic and Black Sea regions, Russia conducted active foreign trade. It exported metal, for the production of which it held a leading position in the world until the end of the 18th century, hemp, linen fabrics, sailcloth, wood, leather. From the end of the XVIII century. grain began to be exported through the Black Sea ports. From foreign countries imported sugar, cloth, metal products, silk, dyes, coffee, wine, fruits, tea. The leading trading partner of our country in the second half of the XVIII century. was England.
Finance. Strengthening the apparatus of power, spending on wars, maintenance of the court and other state needs required large financial resources. Treasury revenues increased for the second half of XVIII in. 4 times. However, the costs increased even more - 5 times.
Ekaterina tried to overcome the chronic budget deficit by traditional methods. One of them was the issue of paper banknotes. For the first time since 1769, paper money appeared (by the end of the 18th century.
the paper ruble depreciated and cost 68 kopecks. silver). Also, for the first time under Catherine, Russia turned to foreign loans. The first of them was made in 1769 in Holland, the second - the following year in Italy.
Russia's budget was typical of the absolutist states of Europe.
Revenues grew due to increased taxes - both direct (head tax) and indirect (sale of wine, salt and other goods by the treasury, customs duties, income from minting coins, etc.). In the expenditure side of the budget, in the first place were the costs of the army and navy, followed by the costs of management, the maintenance of the court, insignificant funds were spent on the development of science, education and art.
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The government of Peter I paid special attention to the construction of manufactories. To guide manufactories and help manufacturers created government bodies: manufactory-collegium and berg-collegium. The Berg Collegium was in charge of mining plants, i.e. mining and metallurgical enterprises, Manufacture - board - the rest of the industry.
The construction of state-owned, i.e. state manufactories. About half of the manufactories of the time of Peter the Great were built by the state, and in the first decades of the 18th century. only state-owned manufactories were built. With state assistance, the first private manufactories appeared. If firewood or charcoal was needed for manufactory production, the manufacturer was given a sufficient plot of wood.
The manufacturer and ore received free of charge. For the development of the mining industry in Russia, "mining freedom" was proclaimed: everyone received the right to develop ore resources in any possessions. If the landowner himself did not take care of the development of ore on his land, the law said, "then he will be forced to endure that others in his lands will seek and dig and remake ore and minerals."
The most traditional form of promoting industrial development in Western Europe was protectionist customs tariffs - increased duties on the import of foreign goods. The first protectionist tariff in Russia came into effect in 1724.
Necessary condition The creation of large-scale industry, as is known, is primitive accumulation, i.e., on the one hand, the accumulation of money, capital in the hands of future industrial capitalists, and on the other, the formation of an army of hired workers. in Russia in the early eighteenth century. the process of primitive accumulation was still far from complete.
There was not enough capital. The people who owned capital did not want to invest it in industry. Therefore, the government used violent measures to identify and mobilize capital. For example, if individual capitals were insufficient to found a manufactory, then a group of merchants was forced to unite in a "company" (company) and build a manufactory together. The desire of the capital owners themselves was not taken into account. For example, in 1720, in order to establish a cloth manufactory in Moscow, Peter I ordered that 14 people be united into a company. from different cities, and they were brought to the place under the escort of soldiers.
Capital that was not used on the farm was subject to confiscation. A decree was issued: a person who reports such hidden, unused capital receives a third of the hidden money, and the rest is confiscated by the state.
Thus, for example, the savings of the Shustov brothers were confiscated: during a search under the floor of their house, more than 4 poods of gold and 106 poods of silver coins were found.
On the other hand, loans and subsidies were widely used to stimulate investment in industry. Hoping to get extra money, rich people were more willing to get involved in industrial construction. In other cases, the state gave the enterprises built by the treasury into private hands. Having received a manufactory, its new owner became involved in industrial entrepreneurship, and he himself began to build manufactories. So, having received the Nevyansk plant in the Urals from the treasury, the Tula blacksmith Nikita Demidov built ten more mining plants.
If about half of the manufactories of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. was founded by the treasury, the rest were built on private, mainly merchant capital.
However, there were still capitals in Russia: they were accumulated by merchants due to non-equivalent trade. There were almost no free workers, the vast majority of the working population was in serfdom. Initially, Peter I assumed that manufacturing production would be provided by hired labor. When issuing permits for the creation of manufactories, the state demanded "to hire free people", but there were not enough hired workers. I had to deviate from the original decision and provide industry with the labor of serfs.
In 1721, the famous decree was issued on permission to buy villages with serfs for manufactories under construction and turn them into serf workers. This permission was given to merchants: the nobles had previously had the right to buy serfs and exploit their labor. In addition, it was the merchants who were the first private manufacturers. Allowing merchants to own serfs violated the class privilege of the nobles. Therefore, the land, the serfs and the manufacture itself were declared not the property of the merchant-manufactory, but only his conditional possession - the possession. The state was considered the legal owner of such a manufactory. Serf workers were attached not to the owner, but to the manufactory itself, and he did not have the right to sell them or use their labor outside the manufactory. All laws issued for state-owned manufactories automatically applied to sessional ones: the state determined the states, production rates, wages, etc.
Possession manufactories should be distinguished from patrimonial manufactories belonging to the nobility. In such manufactories, the labor of their own serfs was used. Noble patrimonial manufactories began to appear mainly after the death of Peter I. At state-owned manufactories, as well as at patrimonial and sessional ones, serf labor was used: workers were attached to enterprises and were obliged to work for them.
In addition, a certain number of state peasants were assigned to state and sessional enterprises. They remained peasants, but state taxes for them were replaced by the performance of auxiliary work at the manufacture. definite term they were obliged to work at the manufactory (cutting wood, burning coal, transporting various goods), then went back to their villages. The position of the assigned was worsened by the fact that their villages were often located hundreds of kilometers from the place of work, and the time of the transition and back was not included in the period of working off. The peasants broke away from their farms for a long time, went bankrupt, and after that they were forced to switch to permanent work at the manufactory.
This was the beginning of "serf manufactory", a peculiar form of industry adapted to the conditions of serfdom and using feudal methods of labor exploitation.
After the death of Peter I, the government continues to stimulate the development of manufactories. As a result of this assistance and patronage, industrialists-manufacturers are merging with the feudal class. On the one hand, manufacturers receive the highest titles of nobility: the heirs of the blacksmith Demidov became princes, the heirs of the Stroganov peasant industrialists became barons. On the other hand, nobles - landowners are increasingly involved in industrial entrepreneurship. Having a manufacture is now considered quite respectable.
The practice of using serf labor in industry is being consolidated. A number of decrees are attached to serf enterprises "forever" and those workers who previously worked for them as hired workers.
However, not all Russian manufactories were serfs, not all were subjected to forced labor. In addition to patrimonial, possession and state enterprises, there were merchants. A merchant's manufactory is not necessarily a manufactory owned by a merchant. The possessions also belonged to the merchants, and the merchant could, for example, belong to a peasant. It is customary to call a merchant's manufactory with hired labor, without serf workers.
The main contingent of hired workers of such merchant manufactories were also serfs - quitrent peasants. From wages, such a peasant paid dues to his landowner, and thus was subjected to double exploitation: capitalist - on the part of the manufacturer and feudal - on the part of the landowner. Sometimes the landowners themselves rented out their peasants to manufacturers.
Merchant manufacture, which used only hired labor, was a quite clearly expressed form of capitalist production. However, serf manufactory with forced labor should not be considered entirely feudal form industry. The owner of such an enterprise invested a certain capital in it and received income in the form of profit from capital, and not feudal rent. The serf worker, unlike the peasant, was distant from the means of production. It existed at the expense of paying for its labor: the owner was forced to pay for the labor of serfs, ensuring the reproduction of the labor force, because the worker, engaged in industrial labor, could not simultaneously conduct a subsistence peasant economy. This capitalist content was clothed here in a feudal-serf form.
The worker sold his labor power not voluntarily, but forcibly. The capitalist entrepreneur was at the same time a feudal landowner, and his property was not only the manufacture, but also its workers. Feudal and capitalist elements intertwined in the production relations of serf manufactory.
Manufacturing in the 18th century achieved significant success, which was reflected in the export of Russia. If in the 17th century the composition of export goods was limited mainly to raw materials, already in 1726 52% of exports were manufactured goods, mainly canvas and iron.
The most intensively developed metallurgical and textile industries. The direct impetus for the construction of metallurgical plants in the Urals ("factories" at that time was customary to call enterprises such as manufactories) was the war with Sweden. It took a lot of metal to make weapons, and Russia imported metal from Sweden. I even had to pour church bells into cannons. Already before 1726. more than 30 metallurgical enterprises were built. Russia not only ceased to depend on metal imports, but even began to export it in large quantities to England. The Industrial Revolution in England was based in to a large extent on Russian iron. At that time, England imposed duties on Russian iron that almost doubled its price. Significant progress in the XVIII century. reached the textile industry. Only under Peter I, about 30 cloth, linen and silk manufactories were built. Linen and canvas were produced in excess and exported abroad.
In addition to the metallurgical and textile industries, the glass, gunpowder, ship, stationery industries successfully developed. The rest of the industries (the production of clothing and footwear, furniture and agricultural tools) remained at the level of handicraft production.
The success of Russian manufactory was explained by its adaptability to serfdom. In the serf manufactory, there were relatively low labor costs: a serf worker could not leave the enterprise for a more generous owner.
Raw materials and fuel were especially cheap for the landowner-manufactory: if, for example, the owner of a metallurgical manufactory in England had to buy ore and charcoal from the owner of the land - the landlord, then for the Ural breeder the cost of raw materials and fuel was reduced to the cost of their procurement by cheap serf labor . Therefore, Russian iron was much cheaper than English. Thus, serfdom gave the owners of manufactories a monopoly on cheap labor, raw materials and fuel and was the basis rapid development manufactory.