State protectionism in the russian empire'sagricultural policy of the 1880s - 1890s

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to reveal the policy essence of state protectionism in the Russian Empire’s agricultural policy of the 1880s – 1890s, to ascertain its conformity with the peasant mood and the requirements of time. The research methodology is based on such principles of historical knowledge as scientificity, historicism, objectivity, system analysis, etc., as well as on the application of general scientific, special historical and special source study methods. The research novelty is based on the fact that for the first time in Ukrainian historiography, on the basis of the analysis of archival documents and legislative acts, the policy essence of state protectionism in the Russian Empire’s agricultural policy of the 1880s – 1890s, the degree of its responsibility to peasant attitudes and the time requirements are revealed.

In our opinion, the Great Reform of 1861 did not solve the agrarian question once and for all. The notion that the state task is to ensure the existence of peasants; the care of them clearly took shape in the reign of Alexander III. The essence of agricultural policy of the government was state protectionist concerning peasants. This led to the exclusion of the principle reflected in the peasant legislation of 1861 from the intellectual field of the Russian establishment. That is, the idea of giving peasants the civil liberties and transforming their land into a real private property gave way to the views, according to which the duty of the autocrat was the care of peasants. The land received by the peasants after the abolition of serfdom was considered by the government as a special fund. Its function was to ensure the existence of peasants as farmers. Conclusions. The strategic direction in agricultural policy of the tsarist government of the 1880s – 1890s was the idea of state protectionism concerning peasants. If, at the end of the 1870s and early 1880s, under the conditions of increasing peasant unrest, the government, to alleviate the acuity of land shortage, was forced to apply to the policy of resettlement of landless peasants on state land and provide them with loans for land purchase, then during the years of the temporary «calm» measures of a different nature were on the foreground. They are the restriction of sales and secrecy of land, the protection of public land tenure, the cessation of any attempt to mass resettlement of peasants, the restriction of crushing peasant farms. The measures that did not expand the trust fund, but fixed the existing holdings for their owners were taken. Conservative landlords saw a solution to the peasant issue in preserving patriarchal «foundations» in the village, in strengthening the power of nobles over peasants.