What were the specific features of the agrarian policy of the white governments during the Civil War?

Depending on the specific features of the agrarian policy of the white governments, their relations with the peasantry were built, which supported the Communists and their opponents. During the Civil War, Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel succeeded in working out entire programs relating to agriculture, but they were never realized.

Importance of a rural issue

Historians are still studying what features the agrarian policy of the white governments has had. New research is made possible by the discovery of previously unknown documents, etc. In the conditions of the outbreak of the Civil War, the position of the peasantry became vital for any authority. It was the villagers who became the backbone of the armies, and it was from them that the welfare of the unstable political regimes depended. The uprising of the dissatisfied peasantry could be fatal both for the Bolsheviks and for supporters of the monarchy or republic.

Therefore, every government since 1917 tried to appease the villagers, making concessions to their interests. Before the October Revolution, the land issue was resolved gradually, through elaborated laws and decrees. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, the situation radically changed. Primitive decisions, changes according to a momentary conjuncture - these were the features of the agrarian policy of the white governments during the Civil War.

Haste of change

Even under Nicholas II, the Stolypin reform began to be implemented in the resettlement of enterprising peasants to Siberia with the purchase of land on credit. This program could not operate in the conditions of a full-scale military conflict in the whole of Russia.

According to the economist and philosopher Peter Struve, all anti-Communists had to quickly alienate property from the state in favor of the villagers. In other words, the privatization of the land was in a hurry and often did not comply with legal norms. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the peasants in the mass were not familiar with the laws and other regulatory documents.

Uncertain actions in the south

So, what features did the agrarian policy of the white governments have? Its main postulates were entirely dependent on the views of the leaders. Thus, the chief of the AFWR, Anton Denikin, called three principles: to preserve the right of ownership, to do everything to ensure order in the village, to support the production of grain and other crops at a level sufficient to feed the army. All these measures were temporary. Denikin himself acknowledged that the whole policy of the Whites in the Kuban and the Don merely postponed the agrarian question until better times, when power in the whole country would finally find itself in legitimate hands, and the Bolsheviks would be overthrown.

It was quite a sluggish stance. While the whites were vacillating, Lenin had already adopted the Decree on Land, on which the property of the landlords-longtime enemies and oppressors of the peasants-had been confiscated. This gave the Bolsheviks great support in the village. The Denikinites and other white people could not repress the landowners, since it was one of the pillars of the old system, for which most of them fought.

Abolition of Bolshevik decrees

However, over time, the peculiarities of the agrarian policy of the white governments seemed to peasants to be trivial in comparison with military communism, which was introduced by the Soviet authorities. In villages, a surplus-appropriation was reinforced - 70% of the products were taken from residents.

The starving villagers went to Denikin, Wrangel, Kolchak, and so on, when they learned what the agrarian policy of the white governments was. To put it briefly, the opponents of the Communists, beating off some region from them, immediately abolished all Soviet laws on the appropriation of food and decrees. If the former owner of the site was not located, then the allotment was temporarily transferred to the state fund.

The Siberian example

In Siberia, the peculiarities of the agrarian policy of the white governments, briefly, differed from Denikin's because of the length of communications and large territory. In particular, the profile ministry of agriculture was established, which was engaged in settling land disputes between owners. Zemstvos were also recreated. They were the minimal administrative unit. The zemstvo issued land and monitored the inviolability of the right to property.

The Siberian transformations were a vivid example of a political course when the authorities tried to solve this or that issue in a dialogue with the public. For these purposes, a special council was created. It included not only officials of the Ministry of Justice and Agriculture. There were also elected representatives of the peasantry and other local residents of this or that region.

At the same time, the case when Kolchak during a public speech in Chelyabinsk in 1919 explained what features the agrarian policy of the white governments had. The short answer is this: the supreme ruler of Russia believed that over time it was necessary to abandon the old order when the country was dominated by large landowners. Kolchak said that the state needs small and strong peasant possessions that would become the basis of a market economy in the countryside.

Conclusion

March 26, 1919 the above-described theses of the supreme ruler of Russia were developed in a specially prepared "Charter of the Earth." The White Government stressed that in the future it would take care of the poor and poor peasants who were left without farms. The criminals were those who, from that day on, seized or divided the land of others.

In general, the agrarian policy of the opponents of the Bolsheviks can be described as a course to recognize private property. White hoped in the future to create a state fund, which would distribute all the disputed lands between market participants.