Russian Peasants And Tsarist Legislation On The Eve Of Reform

This study examines the interaction of peasant and official Russia in the period prior to the reforms of 1861. In a series of case studies the issues of communication and understanding between the peasantry and officialdom, peasant aims and behavioural patterns are explored.

Since the collapse of the USSR there has been a growing interest in the Stolypin Land Reform as a possible model for post-Communist agrarian development. Using recent theoretical and empirical advances in Anglo-American research, Dr Pallot examines how peasants throughout Russia received, interpreted, and acted upon the government's attempts to persuade them to quit the commune and set up independent farms. She shows how a majority of peasants failed to interpret the Reform in the way its authors had expected, with outcomes that varied both temporally and geographically. The result challenges existing texts which either concentrate on the policy side of the Reform or, if they engage with its results, use aggregated, official statistics which, this text argues, are unreliable indicators of the pre-revolutionary peasants reception of the Reform.

This eagerly awaited study of Russia under Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II -- the Russia of War and Peace and Anna Karenina -- brings the series near to completion. David Saunders examines Russia's failure to adapt to the era of reform and democracy ushered into the rest of Europe by the French Revolution. Why, despite so much effort, did it fail? This is a superb book, both as a portrait of an age and as a piece of sustained historical analysis.

This book examines the history of reforms and major state interventions affecting Russian agriculture: the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the Stolypin reforms, the NEP, the Collectivization, Khrushchev reforms, and finally farm enterprise privatization in the early 1990s. It shows a pattern emerging from a political imperative in imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet regimes, and it describes how these reforms were justified in the name of the national interest during severe crises - rapid inflation, military defeat, mass strikes, rural unrest, and/or political turmoil. It looks at the consequences of adversity in the economic environment for rural behavior after reform and at long-run trends. It has chapters on property rights, rural organization, and technological change. It provides a new database for measuring agricultural productivity from 1861 to 1913 and updates these estimates to the present. This book is a study of the policies aimed at reorganizing rural production and their effectiveness in transforming institutions.

Drawing on recently opened archival materials, leading American and European scholars provide an authoritative interpretation of Russian history and culture, ranging from the eighth century to the recent creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

This impressive work, set to become the standard history on the subject, offers a definitive survey of peasant society in Russia, from the consolidation of serfdom and tsarist autocracy in the 17th century through to the destruction of the peasant's traditional world under Stalin. Over three-quarters of Russian society were peasants in these years, and David Moon explores all aspects of their life xxx; including the rural economy, peasant households, village communities xxx; and their political role, including protest against the landowning elites. In the process he presents a fresh perspective on the history of Russia itself. A big book in every way xxx; and compellingly readable.

Drawing on recently de-classified material, the contributors strip away the propaganda and preconceptions of the past to present an absorbing account of the rise and fall of a superpower from the 14th century to the 1990s.

In the wake of the disastrous Crimean War, the Russian autocracy completely renovated its most basic social, political and economic systems by emancipating some 23 million privately-owned serfs. This had enormous consequences for all aspects of Russian life, and profound effects on the course of Russian history. This book examines the emancipation of the serfs, focusing on the mechanisms used to enact the reforms and the implications for Russian politics and society in the long term. Because the autocracy lacked the necessary resources for the reform, it created new institutions with real powers and autonomy, particularly the mirovoi posrednik, or 'peace arbitrator'. The results of this strategy differed in practice from the authorities’ original intentions. The new institutions invigorated Russian political life, introduced norms that challenged centuries-old customs and traditions, and fostered a nascent civil society, allowing Russia to follow the basic trajectory of Western European socio-political development.