Serfdom in the Russian Empire
Serfdom was the defining institution of Russian social and economic life for most of the imperial period. Under the system, millions of Russian peasants were bound to the land and to their landlords, who held extensive powers over their persons, their labor, and even their lives. Serfdom shaped every aspect of Russian life, from the structure of the economy to the nature of the social order to the development of Russian culture and politics. The institution was finally abolished in 1861, but its legacy shaped Russian economic and social life for decades afterward and continues to influence Russian society to the present day.
The institution of Russian serfdom developed over several centuries, reaching its most extreme form in the eighteenth century and persisting in significant respects until the early twentieth century. The system of serfdom has been compared to slavery, although it was not identical, and the conditions of Russian serfs varied considerably depending on the region, the time period, and the character of their owners. The system was widely criticized by Russian intellectuals from the eighteenth century onward, and the contrast with the abolition of serfdom in the rest of Europe became an increasing source of embarrassment to the Russian elite.
Origins and development
The origins of Russian serfdom lie in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when the increasing mobility of the population and the labor demands of the expanding state and the great landowners led to restrictions on the freedom of peasants. Before this period, the Russian peasantry was largely free, although peasants were tied to their villages and to the payment of various dues and taxes.
The first major restrictions on peasant movement came in the late fifteenth century, when the grand princes of Moscow began to issue charters restricting the right of peasants to leave their lands. The restrictions were gradually intensified over the following centuries, and by the early seventeenth century, the Russian peasantry was effectively bound to the land. The process was completed by the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, the law code of Tsar Alexis, which formalized the system of serfdom as a near-permanent condition and gave the landlords extensive powers over their serfs.
The development of serfdom was driven by several factors. The state needed a stable tax base and a reliable source of military recruits, and the serf system provided both. The landlords, who were the main beneficiaries of the system, wanted a guaranteed labor force for their estates, and they resisted any attempt to limit their control over the peasants. The peasantry, for its part, was weakened by the disruptions of the Time of Troubles, the increasing tax burden, and the loss of the economic opportunities of the earlier period.
The institution of serfdom
Under the system of serfdom, the serfs were bound to the land and to the landlord who owned the land. The serfs could be bought, sold, traded, and punished at the discretion of their owners, and they were required to provide labor, money, and various services to the landlord. The serfs were also required to pay taxes to the state, which were collected by the landlord.
The conditions of serfs varied considerably. Some serfs were relatively well-treated, particularly those who worked on the estates of wealthy and cultured landlords, while others were subjected to harsh treatment and abuse. The serfs had limited legal rights, and the courts generally sided with the landlords in disputes. The serfs were also subject to the landlord’s discipline, including corporal punishment, and in some cases, serfs who resisted their owners were sent to Siberia or to the army.
The serfs were also subject to various disabilities. They could not leave the land without the landlord’s permission, and they could not own property, marry without the landlord’s consent, or engage in certain trades. The serfs were also subject to the landlord’s religious authority, and in some cases, the landlord could require the serfs to attend the Orthodox Church or to perform various religious duties.
The obligations of the serfs varied widely from estate to estate. Many serfs owed labor service (barshchina) on the landlord’s land, working the rest of the time on their own allotments; the three-day maximum recommended by Paul I’s manifesto of 1797 was widely ignored, and the burden was often heavier. Many other serfs, particularly in the less fertile regions, paid a money or in-kind quitrent (obrok) instead. In either case, the land the serfs worked for themselves was often insufficient to support their families. The serfs were also required to perform various corvée duties, including the maintenance of roads and bridges, and they were subject to the recruitment of the army, with the landlord being responsible for providing a certain number of recruits each year.
The growth of serfdom in the 18th century
The eighteenth century saw the most extreme development of serfdom in Russian history. The reforms of Peter the Great, while introducing a new system of state service and a new administrative system, did not address the question of serfdom, and the new system actually contributed to the consolidation of the institution. The Table of Ranks of 1722 allowed commoners to enter the nobility through state service, and these newly ennobled servitors were often rewarded with estates and the bound peasants who worked them, giving yet another class a stake in the institution.
The reign of Catherine the Great, while marked by the rhetoric of Enlightenment, also saw an important expansion of serfdom. Catherine gave the landlords extensive powers over their serfs, and she granted state lands and the serfs on them to her favorites and supporters. The serfs were also given to various state institutions, including the army and the navy, and to private industrial enterprises. By the end of Catherine’s reign, more than half of the Russian peasantry was in serfdom.
The conditions of the serfs in the late eighteenth century were often harsh. The landlords had extensive powers of punishment, and the serfs were subject to the whip, the stocks, and other forms of corporal punishment. The serfs were also sold and traded like any other property, and they were often separated from their families. The treatment of the serfs was widely criticized by Russian intellectuals, including Alexander Radishchev, whose Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, published in 1790, was a sharp critique of the system.
Rebellion and dissent: Pugachev and the Decembrists
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw several distinct events that would eventually lead to the abolition of serfdom. The first was the Pugachev Rebellion of 1773-1775, a massive Cossack and peasant uprising in the Urals and the Volga region. The rebellion, led by the Don Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, who claimed to be the deposed Tsar Peter III, attracted the support of large numbers of serfs, who were promised freedom from serfdom and other reforms. The rebellion was eventually suppressed, but it demonstrated the depth of peasant discontent and the danger of leaving the serf question unresolved.
The second pressure came from within the elite: the Decembrist revolt of December 1825, a military uprising by officers and aristocrats who had been influenced by the liberal and nationalist ideas they had encountered in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. The Decembrists called for a wide range of reforms, including the abolition of serfdom, the establishment of a constitution, and the introduction of a representative assembly. The revolt was easily suppressed, but it demonstrated the existence of a significant reform movement among the Russian elite, and the serf question would remain a central issue in Russian political life for the next several decades.
A third factor was the increasing engagement of the Russian government with the question of serfdom. Several Russian emperors, including Alexander I and Nicholas I, considered the possibility of reform, and various proposals were made and discussed. The question of serfdom was, however, deeply linked to the interests of the nobility, who dominated the Russian state and who were the main beneficiaries of the system. The lack of political pressure from below, combined with the lack of political will from above, meant that the question remained unresolved.
The emancipation of 1861
The emancipation of the serfs was the central reform of the reign of Alexander II. The emancipation was the result of a long process of deliberation and negotiation that began in the 1850s and culminated in the Emancipation Manifesto of 19 February 1861.
The defeat of Russia in the Crimean War of 1853-1856 was the catalyst for the emancipation. The defeat exposed the backwardness of the Russian military, the inadequacy of the Russian economy, and the corruption and incompetence of the Russian administration. The new tsar, Alexander II, was determined to reform the Russian state, and he identified the serf question as the most important issue.
The emancipation was a complex political process. The government had to balance the interests of the landlords, who would lose their labor force, the interests of the serfs, who would gain their freedom, and the interests of the state, which needed a stable tax base. The result was a compromise that satisfied no one fully. The serfs were granted personal freedom, but they received substantially less land than they had previously worked, and they were required to make heavy redemption payments to the state to compensate the landlords. The terms of the emancipation left many peasants feeling that they had been cheated, and the issue of land and the peasantry would remain a source of tension and political instability for the rest of the imperial period.
The emancipation had major social and economic consequences. It created a large class of free peasants, but it also created a class of land-hungry peasants who were dissatisfied with the terms of the emancipation. The landlords, for their part, lost their labor force but received compensation in the form of the redemption payments. The emancipation also contributed to the development of a market economy in the countryside, with the former serfs increasingly producing for the market rather than for their own consumption.
The post-emancipation peasantry
The post-emancipation peasantry faced a number of serious problems. The terms of the emancipation had left the former serfs with insufficient land, and they were burdened with heavy redemption payments. The village commune, which was preserved by the emancipation, was a powerful source of social control, but it also limited the individual peasant’s freedom and economic opportunities. The emancipation did not, in short, create a class of independent peasant farmers, and the peasantry remained a source of social and political tension.
The development of industry and the growth of the cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created new opportunities for the peasantry, but it also created new problems. Many peasants migrated to the cities to work in the factories, but the conditions of urban life and industrial work were often harsh, and the migrants often retained their ties to their villages and their land. The Stolypin reforms of the early twentieth century were an attempt to address some of the issues left unresolved by the emancipation, but the reforms were cut short by the assassination of Pyotr Stolypin in 1911 and the outbreak of the First World War.
The legacy of serfdom
Serfdom left a deep mark on Russian social and economic life. The institution shaped the structure of the economy, the nature of the social order, the development of Russian culture, and the character of the Russian state. The abolition of serfdom in 1861 was a turning point, but it did not resolve the fundamental problems of Russian society, and the legacy of serfdom continued to shape Russian history in the late imperial and Soviet periods.
Historians have long debated the meaning of the legacy. The institutional and economic argument, associated with the work of Boris Mironov and the Russian agrarian historians, is that serfdom created a culture of dependence and a structure of economic relationships that persisted long after the formal abolition. The cultural and psychological argument, associated with the older Slavophile tradition and with twentieth-century émigré historians, is that serfdom left a deep mark on the Russian character and on the relationship between the state and the people. The two arguments are not mutually exclusive: the institutional legacy of serfdom was visible in the weakness of the Russian bourgeoisie, the land hunger of the peasantry, and the slow growth of the Russian consumer market, and the cultural legacy was visible in the political quiescence of the late imperial period and the ease with which the Bolsheviks were able to abolish the market economy in 1917-1920. (See Mironov, A Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700-1917, 2 vols., 1999-2000; Kotsonis, States of Obligation: Taxes and Citizenship in the Russian Empire and Early Soviet Republic, 2014.)