The programme and conception of the reformers, the legislation of 19 February 1861 and the other Great Reforms
Terence Emmons rightly observed that 'recently historians have begun to pay particular attention to the interconnections among the reforms of the i86o-i87os'. The view that serfdom was the 'cornerstone' of the state structure (the army, laws, administration), and that it was impossible to leave them unchanged because they simply could not function as before, has been increasingly corroborated in the historiography and is virtually undisputed. However, Emmons stresses that this is only part of the truth and in concentrating too much attention on it we risk losing 'sight of that "ideology" of reforms, which usually unites all large-scale transformations in one epoch and one system'.[12]This important conclusion deserves close attention.
In order to analyse this question we need to consider the ideas of the reformers, their understanding of the aims of the reforms, their views on the interrelationships of all the transformations and the prospects for Russia's development. Without research into this aspect of the history of the Great Reforms, it is impossible to appreciate their depth and scale. One must not forget that the reforms were carried out by an autocratic monarchy, and that the reformers could not clearly and openly state their final aims in the legislation.
For this reason many fundamental aspects of the Statutes of 19 February 1861, of the Zemstvo Statute of 1864 and other legislative acts have been somewhat obscured.
Take one of the outstanding leaders of the Great Reforms, the minister of war under Alexander II, the historian, professor and brilliant memoirist D. A. Miliutin. In the middle of the 1880s, in retirement after the death of Alexander II and the change of course, he wrote in his memoirs, The Law of 19 February 1861 could not have been a separate, isolated act, it was the foundation-stone of the restructuring of the entire state system' (my emphasis). Miliutin considered that in order to understand 'our state regeneration' which happened in the first ten years of the reign of Alexander II, it was necessary to examine 'the course of the three main reforms - the peasant reform, the zemstvo reform and the judicial reform.'[13] V O. Kliuchevskii came to an even broader conclusion about the interconnections of the reforms: 'The peasant reform was the starting point and at the same time the final aim of the whole transformation process. The process of reform had to begin with it, and all the other reforms flowed from it as inevitable consequences and were supposed to ensure that it was carried out successfully. These reforms would find support and justification in the peasant reform's successful realisation.'[14] Finally, in the contemporary research of Steven Hoch and M. D. Dolbilovthe preparation of the draft of the redemption scheme in the Editing Commissions is examined in close connection with the work of the Banking Commission.[15]
Apart from memoirs and letters, the ideas of the reformers are most fully and openly revealed in the unofficial chronicle of the Editing Commissions, which prepared the codified drafts of the Statutes of 19 February. This detailed, lively (virtually a stenographic report) record of the journals of the 409 meetings which took place in the nineteen-month existence of this non-traditional institution in the history of autocracy contains the actual words of the participants - their remarks, jokes, quarrels, and the arguments between the sides.[16]This chronicle was created at the initiative of the members of the Editing
Commissions, who recognised the scale of the tasks that lay before them and their responsibility 'in the eyes of the people', to 'the public' and the nobility of Russia, and in the face of Europe.[17]
The chairman and members of the Editing Commissions often stated that although currently engaged in the transformation of the private serfs' world they were concerned with the fate of all categories of peasants - that is state peasants, appanage peasants and others, who exceeded the numbers of serfs (the peasantry as a whole made up 80 per cent of the population). V A. Cherkasskii declared that the drafts of the Editing Commissions signified 'a general revolution' in land relations. The Chairman of the Commission Ia. I. Rostovstev formulated the task even more broadly: 'It is our duty to sort out all the questions concerning the peasantry, because the statute on the emancipation of the serfs must change our entire Code of Laws.'[18] N. A. Miliutin, straight after his dismissal on 2 May i86i, wrote to Cherkasskii expressing his concern about the fate ofthe peasant-reform initiative: 'Now there is no longer that same internal mechanism which led inevitably to the decisive break - there are no Editing Commissions, which set the reform on its way' (my emphasis).[19] In general Rostovtsev considered that 'the creation of the Russian narod (people, nation) began in 1859'.[20] Here it is worth remembering the task that Speranskii laid down in his list of not yet completed projects at the beginning of the nineteenth century: 'To create our own nation [offree people - L.Z.], in order to then give it a form of government.'[21]
The 'General Memorandum Covering the Drafts of the Editing Commissions', written by Samarin and signed by twenty-three members of the Commissions at the last meeting on 10 October i860, revealed the concept underlying the legislation. These men saw Russia as a special case because it was possible to decide the question of the abolition of serfdom and the future arrangement of land relations in one legislative act - through peasant redemption of plots and the preservation of a significant portion of gentry, that is, noble, landholding. They noted:
In other states governments followed this path in several stages, and so to speak groped their way because such a reform had never been experienced before in practice, and at the beginning it was impossible to envisage how the process would end. That is why the sequence of measures leading to the gradual broadening of the rights of the serfs and an improvement in their way of life has virtually everywhere given rise to unforeseen social crises. In this regard, Russia is luckier. By making use of the experience of other countries it has been given the possibility ...to embrace straightaway the entire path that lies ahead from the first step to the full curtailment of obligatory relations by means of the redemption of land.[22]
It is clear why research on land redemption led B. G. Litvak to the following evaluation of the 1861 reform: 'In fact, this was a process, at the outset ofwhich the emancipation of the individual from the power of the landowner was proclaimed . . . but whose final stage was the creation of communal and household land-ownership' (my emphasis).[23]
The legalposition ofthe peasants was transformed radically and consistently in the drafts of the Editing Commissions and in the Statutes of i9 February 1861. Personal dependence of peasants on the nobility ended immediately. The former serfs acquired a civic status, although the peasantry remained subject to certain specific estate (soslovie) obligations. Peasant self-government was introduced - at the volost' and village level (on the whole on the basis of the obshchina) with officials elected by the peasants, with assemblies and a peasant district (volost') court. In this part of the legislation much was borrowed from Kiselev's reform of the state peasantry. Peasant self-governing institutions were placed under the supervision of the local state administration and performed fiscal functions for the government, but they also served to defend the interests ofthe peasants against the landowners. In addition, they provided the basis for peasant participation in the new institutions for all the sosloviia - the zemstvo (local elected assembly) and jury courts.
14
V O. Kliuchevskii,
15
M. D. Dolbilov 'Proekty vykupnoi operatsii 1857-1861 gg. K otsenke tvorchestva refor- matorskoi komandy',
pp. 95-105.
16
20
M. Borodkin,
152.
21
M. M. Speranskii,
Speranskii,
22