Agricultural Policy

The complex, tangled, ambivalent liberation of agriculture from its medieval shell in 1861 gave in time impetus to broader changes in agriculture, as well as in industry, transport, commerce, banking, and the government's receipts and expenditures. These changes were affected at times directly by clearly formulated governmental policies, at times indirectly and hesitantly by democratic policies evolved under circumstantial pressures domestic or foreign. I shall examine the character and scope of these policies in all the indicated sectors and conclude on their combined impact on the economy as a whole.

The liberation of agriculture from certain medieval bounds involved historically three key elements: first, the emancipation of the serfs along with the abolition of variously defined feudal rights; second, the liberation of the ownership of land from certain legal restrictions and greater mobility regarding land transfers; and third, the partial release of agriculture from the ancient culture and usages of cultivation methods and land management. To what extent did the reform of 1861 and subsequent related measures actually help liberate agricultural labor through land ownership and offload ancient agricultural customs and methods?

The reform of 1861 certainly aimed at recasting the Russian agrarian society on new bases, by creating a landowning peasantry and by buttressing the management of the land allotted and purchased by the peasants through the authority of the communes. Recall that the reform abolished the bondage rights of the gentry over the peasants' serfs settled on their estates as well as over the manorial servants.