State peasants in Russia

State peasants are a special class that was formed in Russia in the 18th century. Three categories of the free population of the village joined it. The first were black peasants. They were resettled on "sovereign lands of the Blacks." The second category was the "economic" peasants. These people inhabited the monastery territories. The third category were single-residents. They were considered descendants of servicemen who occupied the southern borders of Moscow Russia since the 16th century, who did not enter the noble estate under Peter's reforms. At the same time, in a number of provinces (Voronezh, Kursk, Orel, Tambov), the majority of the local population made up the same people.

State peasants as a class to the beginning of the reign of Nicholas were about seventeen million people. Since the times of Moscow Rus, this class has retained not only personal freedom, but also self-government. State peasants were not subjected to corporal punishment .

According to some historians, this class was mainly outside of Great Russia. However, this is not quite true. Even in the central part of the country, the state peasantry included more people than in the western regions. At the time of the publication of the Code of Laws of the 1830s, it constituted the main or entire mass of the population in the thirty-six provinces of the European part of the state and in Siberia. It was the most numerous class of Russian society at that time.

The state peasants were entitled to a free transition from one rural municipality to another, from one province to another, from the county to the county. At the same time, resettlement from one territory to another was often encouraged by the government. State peasants had the right (both whole societies, and separately) to enter into contracts and contracts with private individuals. They could also acquire property (movable or immovable), give it as security. After the publication in 1801, December 12, of a special decree, the state peasantry was given the right (as a philistinism and merchant class) to acquire private ownership of land.

While the nobles were enslaved by military service, and then endowed with excessive liberties, the "third estate" was formed. It was supplemented by representatives of the state peasantry, along with industrialists and merchants. The most numerous class of the state also had the right to enter trade ranks, guilds, to open factories, handicrafts and industrial establishments, trading enterprises and keep them.

It should be noted that at the time of the accession to the throne of Nicholas, the state peasantry was in crisis. The Department of the Ministry of Finance was in charge of this class of population . It must be assumed that this body tried to "squeeze" out of the state peasants as much as possible, seeking to obtain from them those taxes that could not be taken away from the landlords. The nobility administration in the regions shifted to the rural population natural duties, the heaviest ones. I must say that this not only benefited the landlords, but also to a certain extent facilitated the life of serfdom. At the same time, the nobility administration often concealed the arbitrariness of landowners who sought to cash in from the communal lands. The economic situation of the state peasantry was constantly deteriorating. At the same time the government allocated significant sums for its maintenance in lean years.

With the beginning of the reign of Nicholas, the position of the state peasantry began to be determined by general civil legislation, and not by administrative acts. This was the result of Speransky's extensive work on streamlining the laws of the country. At the same time, many decrees appeared in public for the first time.