Stolypin’s Agrarian Reforms: Their Aims and Impact

In 1906, Tsar Nicholas II appointed a new prime minister, Peter Stolypin. His approach to government was to combine discipline with moderate reform.

Discipline

In the circumstances of his appointment – with a troublesome Duma, political assassinations, a naval mutiny and continuing peasant disturbances – Stolypin moved swiftly to the counter-attack. He established the notorious field courts-marshall to deal with terrorists and rural trouble-makers. In ten months some 1400 people were executed by order of these administrative courts. A further 2000 people went to the gallows by order of the ordinary courts between 1905 and 1908. The hangman’s noose became known as the ‘Stolypin necktie’ and earned the Prime Minister a reputation as a ruthless and brutal reactionary.

Agrarian Reform

There was, however, another aspect to Stolypin’s work. Between 1906 and 1911, a series of measures designed to address the peasant problem (known collectively as the Stolypin Reform) was introduced. The principle aim of the reforms was to stimulate the appearance of a class of prosperous land-owning peasants. It was hoped that independence from the commune would breed enterprise and lead to improved agricultural yields. Moreover, Stolypin aimed to counteract peasant disturbances by encouraging a class that would have a vested interest in preserving the regime. In the aftermath of the 1905 disturbances redemption payments were cancelled in another bid to pacify the peasantry.

The principle focus of Stolypin’s reforms was the ancient peasant commune (mir). Instead of redistributing noble land (the demand at the centre of rural disturbances), Stolypin decided to allow the peasants to opt out of communal land management. His legislation enabled them to leave the control of the commune and to consolidate their scattered strips of land into a single farm.

Stolypin’s reforms therefore consisted of three crucial measures:

• The annulment of redemption dues (1906)

• A law allowing peasant families to leave the commune (1907)

• A law encouraging peasants to consolidate their holdings of land (1907)

Stolypin also supplemented his major land reform initiative by encouraging the relocation of peasants from the overpopulated regions of European Russian to the vast tracts of vacant land in Siberia.

How successful were Stolypin’s reforms?

Stolypin’s measures had an immediate impact. In the first two years some 15 per cent of the peasantry took up the new opportunities. By 1914, 25 per cent had left the communes and 10 per cent had consolidated their holdings. Given that Russia’s peasant population was around 100 million in this period, this was a huge and rapid change.

However, the rate of applications to leave the communes and consolidate holdings was declining after the initial rush. Arguably, Stolypin had misjudged the character of the Russian peasantry, who preferred collective security to individual enterprise. Stolypin peasants were also found in the more prosperous agricultural areas. The reforms had the least impact in areas with the worst problems, especially the central region.  Also, many of those that consolidated their lands did so in order to sell it and relocate to the towns. The class of prosperous peasants which Stolypin had hoped to encourage therefore never materialised.

The number of peasant households leaving the mir. There were between 10 and 12 million households in total.

Politically too, the reform missed its target. Peasants maintained an overwhelming desire to see the redistribution of noble estates, regarding this as the only real solution to the problem of land hunger. In addition, the appearance of independent farmers – whose ambitions had disrupted the traditional work patterns of the village community – provoked resentment among those who remained within the commune. Instead of relieving the situation in the countryside, Stolypin’s reforms added a new dimension to peasant tensions.

Nonetheless, Stolypin’s reforms were the only serious attempt that the tsarist regime made to tackle peasant backwardness and the problem of rural overpopulation. The measures were also disrupted by Stolypin’s assassination in 1911 and the outbreak of world war in 1914. They might have helped the regime survive if given more time.