Land to the peasants in Wrangel. Key idea reform
Land reform was based on one key idea - the consolidation of the unbranched private ownership of land.
All the land to be transferred to the workers was assigned to them as property, subject to payment of their preferential value to the state (and in ways that facilitate payment). Ownership of the subsoil (until this issue was resolved by the All-Russian authorities) was retained by the former owners.
The issues of choosing the owners, for whom the land was fixed, and determining the maximum size of the land plots were provided to the county land councils. In the latter, local peasant masters prevailed.
The land order rejected the idea of universal endowment. There was no free distribution of land, promises to provide everyone with land and turn it into land owners and rural owners of each and every one. As P.N. Wrangel noted, everything coincides with the streamlining of land use within the relevant territory - which was a plus as compared with the broad plans for an impracticable total redistribution of all state-owned land among all (which required the forced resettlement and resettlement of large masses of the peasant population).
It was important that the land was allocated to personal, and not to communal or common property - that is, at least in one common piece for a whole group of owners, but with a clear indication of how much land belongs to a particular owner, and with the right to make allotment in accordance with not with the general agreement of all the partners in this property, but by decisions of the owners' meetings. Restrictions for the individual owner's branded sites could only occur in cases where it was possible under technical conditions and (for some reason) necessary.
Thus, from the composition of general agricultural land, the former owners had only plots not exceeding the maximum land tenure rates established by the government on the proposal of land councils. The rest of the land of each volost was transferred to the volost land councils - and the latter distributed them among the peasants who cultivated this land and received it in full ownership. The preemptive right to purchase land was granted to soldiers fighting for the restoration of statehood, and members of their families. PN Wrangel emphasized that these measures should be implemented not only quickly, but also so that the population believed in the determination of the government to bring the land issue to a complete settlement.
The law was based on a solid foundation, based on economic mechanisms. Thus, the amount of bread due as payment for the alienated plots could be made by new owners during the 25-year period - annually in equal parts constituting the 1 / 5 part of the average crop, and the payer was given the right to fully pay the cost of all or part of the land plot assigned to it ahead of schedule - in-kind or its cash value at market prices at the time of payment.
In subsequent regulations, much more favorable terms of payments for land were established. In the order from 26. 07. 1920, No. 3367 (on cash and grain payments for land on 1920) indicated the following: 1) contributions are made only from the sowing tithe (previously it was assumed to be circular) in an amount not more than 1 / 5 of the current year’s crop (instead of the average for the last 10 years) and with the grain of bread that was actually harvested; 2) these contributions came under contracts - the owners of estates or (in their absence) directly to the treasury; 3) all payments received from planters (both to owners and to the treasury) were immediately credited to payers as an 1 payment to the state on account of the redemption value of the land (the final settlement for which the state took over ).
The question of redemption was the only question that caused some doubts. As P.N. Wrangel noted, the peasants did not object to the ransom, but indicated that the size of the ransom payments should be reduced. For them, it was more important to guarantee the receipt of land in unconditional ownership - and the ransom was one of them.
The ownership of the new owners was formed in two stages (as was the case with the February 19 clause of 1861). Initially, the land was assigned to them on the basis of an extract from the decisions of the county land councils on the approval of attachment projects - submitted by the volost land councils. After payment to the state of the cost of alienated lands, the entity became the full legal owner - whose right was notarized. Getting the last document ("fortress") was the peasant's cherished dream.
The order of law enforcement was established in such a way as to, first of all, immediately stop unauthorized reprisals against the invaders and prevent new land grabs, as well as carry out a reform with minimal destruction of existing farms and without reducing the agricultural productivity of the latter. And in each locality, immediately after its occupation by the Russian army, any possession of land (regardless of the base) was protected from seizures and violence. A land law was enacted in each occupied territory automatically.
The rights of owners were recognized unshakable.
Establishing a procedure for the alienation and transfer to the workers of agricultural land, the land law allowed the possibility of transfer of land to small landowners - by acquiring from former owners on voluntary transactions. These transactions had to be approved by the volost land councils - in order to eliminate the circumvention of legislation through such transactions. Lands transferred to landowners for similar sales transactions were not subject to redemption payments.
After the edition of 15. 07. 1920 g. Provisions on the volost zemstvos the right to elect land councils passed to the volost Zemstvo assemblies.
The volost land council consisted of 5 - 10 members - electing a chairman from among their ranks. Similar were the rules regarding county land councils.
Thus, the land order from 25. 05. 1920 did indeed transfer all land issues into the hands of the agricultural population itself.
The front-line counties occupied by the Russian army — Melitopol, Dniprovsky, and part of Perekopsky — had a substantial land fund to be alienated. Since the implementation of the Land Order in life in the area closest to the enemy was particularly revealing, we decided to start the county land council in these counties in the first place - gradually going down to the south. In Yalta district, it was not supposed to open land institutions due to the absence of large state-owned and privately owned agricultural properties and the resort value of the coastal strip. The volost land council was established here later - and only for one volost attached to the Simferopol district land council. After the occupation of a part of Berdyansk district, a post of district mediator was established in it.
The Russian army carried the peasants a new law on the land - and the Bolsheviks did everything possible to prevent the spread of information about this among the population.
In early July, district mediators with a staff of assistants and surveyors began work. And by the end of July in a number of volosts, despite the difficulties of wartime, the elections to the volost land councils were completed. Despite the suffering, the peasants willingly participated in them. The councils turned out to be many advanced peasants, as well as quite a few representatives of the local intelligentsia (justices of the peace, teachers, agronomists).
Land councils began work.
Moreover, the peasants, while carrying out the latest field work, were sometimes assisted by troops. In a number of rich volosts, wealthy peasants immediately bought land from the owners. In general, in all territories, land legislation was perceived very favorably.
In drawing up projects on the size of land parcels left by the owners, the volost land councils focused on the 100 - 150 tithe figure - but some recognized the need to take into account the multi-family nature of the owners, their participation in the Civil War, their personal contribution to the management, etc. In accordance with this, the size of farms reached 400 - 600 (in Simferopol district) tithes. There were cases when the owners were supposed to leave the peasant rate. That is, the issue was resolved quite democratically.
In a number of volosts the department of agriculture and land management opened the points where the bread brought by the peasants to the redemption land payments was received.
Command of the Russian Army and members of the government P. N. Wrangel
The agrarian reform of P. N. Wrangel set the first and foremost task of a radical solution of the land question - assuming a lawful transition, by means of a buyout, of all the lands that could be processed, into the hands of the peasants, who cultivated them. Moreover, these lands immediately or in the short term were transferred to them as property. We see that the successors of P. A. Stolypin (P. N. Wrangel and V. I. Lenin) relied on the formation of a strong class of small landowners — the middle peasantry. But if for the Bolsheviks it was a temporary tactical move, the Wrangel reform was conceived "seriously and for a long time" - fully responding to the aspirations of the peasantry, the traditional bastion of Russian statehood.
The principles of compulsory alienation (from former owners) and repurchase (by new owners), which were the basis of Wrangel law, were in full compliance with the current legislation - having gone from the scope of “emergency” measures typical of the era of the Civil War. With the help of the redemption payments system, the government wanted to satisfy the former landowners, and although the reform idea was somewhat hurt by the high size of these payments, the peasants knew that they were getting the land forever - legally, and the redemption payments could be set aside (the law allowed it) and even canceled.
But the time limit allotted to the White movement, expired. God traditionally remained on the side of the big battalions, and the unequal position of the parties to the conflict proclaimed the imminent fall of the white south. Despite all the positive characteristics of the new land legislation, it was overdue - and for objective reasons, the reform was never brought to its logical conclusion.
An outstanding political figure and an outstanding frontline commander, P.N. Wrangel was one of the most significant figures in the horizon of the Civil War in Russia. In the shortest possible time, he managed to create from the remnants of the All-Soviet Union of Defense forces a cohesive and efficient army that stood firmly on the foundation of regular principles. He implemented the much-needed reforms: land and local government. It was possible to restore the relative law and order. But the general is simply not enough resources, especially the most important of them - time. Perhaps a contemporary was right, who believed that if a similar land law had been issued not by P.N. Wrangel 25 in May 1920, but by A. I. Denikin two years earlier, the results of the Civil War would have been completely different. After all, if without the land law, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia reached Orel and Voronezh, then with the land law, of course, attracted the main peasant masses to them (remember the classic words that any peasant is first and foremost an owner), they are probably would reach Moscow.
Active actions at the front, together with qualitative reforms in the liberated territories, would have been a death sentence for the Bolshevik regime. PN Wrangel understood this perfectly well, who once said that it was possible not to liberate Russia during the triumphal march to Moscow, but by creating at least on a patch of Russian land such an order and conditions of life that would draw all the forces and the thoughts of the people groaning under the red yoke.
All the land to be transferred to the workers was assigned to them as property, subject to payment of their preferential value to the state (and in ways that facilitate payment). Ownership of the subsoil (until this issue was resolved by the All-Russian authorities) was retained by the former owners.
The issues of choosing the owners, for whom the land was fixed, and determining the maximum size of the land plots were provided to the county land councils. In the latter, local peasant masters prevailed.
The land order rejected the idea of universal endowment. There was no free distribution of land, promises to provide everyone with land and turn it into land owners and rural owners of each and every one. As P.N. Wrangel noted, everything coincides with the streamlining of land use within the relevant territory - which was a plus as compared with the broad plans for an impracticable total redistribution of all state-owned land among all (which required the forced resettlement and resettlement of large masses of the peasant population).
It was important that the land was allocated to personal, and not to communal or common property - that is, at least in one common piece for a whole group of owners, but with a clear indication of how much land belongs to a particular owner, and with the right to make allotment in accordance with not with the general agreement of all the partners in this property, but by decisions of the owners' meetings. Restrictions for the individual owner's branded sites could only occur in cases where it was possible under technical conditions and (for some reason) necessary.
Thus, from the composition of general agricultural land, the former owners had only plots not exceeding the maximum land tenure rates established by the government on the proposal of land councils. The rest of the land of each volost was transferred to the volost land councils - and the latter distributed them among the peasants who cultivated this land and received it in full ownership. The preemptive right to purchase land was granted to soldiers fighting for the restoration of statehood, and members of their families. PN Wrangel emphasized that these measures should be implemented not only quickly, but also so that the population believed in the determination of the government to bring the land issue to a complete settlement.
The law was based on a solid foundation, based on economic mechanisms. Thus, the amount of bread due as payment for the alienated plots could be made by new owners during the 25-year period - annually in equal parts constituting the 1 / 5 part of the average crop, and the payer was given the right to fully pay the cost of all or part of the land plot assigned to it ahead of schedule - in-kind or its cash value at market prices at the time of payment.
In subsequent regulations, much more favorable terms of payments for land were established. In the order from 26. 07. 1920, No. 3367 (on cash and grain payments for land on 1920) indicated the following: 1) contributions are made only from the sowing tithe (previously it was assumed to be circular) in an amount not more than 1 / 5 of the current year’s crop (instead of the average for the last 10 years) and with the grain of bread that was actually harvested; 2) these contributions came under contracts - the owners of estates or (in their absence) directly to the treasury; 3) all payments received from planters (both to owners and to the treasury) were immediately credited to payers as an 1 payment to the state on account of the redemption value of the land (the final settlement for which the state took over ).
The question of redemption was the only question that caused some doubts. As P.N. Wrangel noted, the peasants did not object to the ransom, but indicated that the size of the ransom payments should be reduced. For them, it was more important to guarantee the receipt of land in unconditional ownership - and the ransom was one of them.
The ownership of the new owners was formed in two stages (as was the case with the February 19 clause of 1861). Initially, the land was assigned to them on the basis of an extract from the decisions of the county land councils on the approval of attachment projects - submitted by the volost land councils. After payment to the state of the cost of alienated lands, the entity became the full legal owner - whose right was notarized. Getting the last document ("fortress") was the peasant's cherished dream.
The order of law enforcement was established in such a way as to, first of all, immediately stop unauthorized reprisals against the invaders and prevent new land grabs, as well as carry out a reform with minimal destruction of existing farms and without reducing the agricultural productivity of the latter. And in each locality, immediately after its occupation by the Russian army, any possession of land (regardless of the base) was protected from seizures and violence. A land law was enacted in each occupied territory automatically.
The rights of owners were recognized unshakable.
Establishing a procedure for the alienation and transfer to the workers of agricultural land, the land law allowed the possibility of transfer of land to small landowners - by acquiring from former owners on voluntary transactions. These transactions had to be approved by the volost land councils - in order to eliminate the circumvention of legislation through such transactions. Lands transferred to landowners for similar sales transactions were not subject to redemption payments.
After the edition of 15. 07. 1920 g. Provisions on the volost zemstvos the right to elect land councils passed to the volost Zemstvo assemblies.
The volost land council consisted of 5 - 10 members - electing a chairman from among their ranks. Similar were the rules regarding county land councils.
Thus, the land order from 25. 05. 1920 did indeed transfer all land issues into the hands of the agricultural population itself.
The front-line counties occupied by the Russian army — Melitopol, Dniprovsky, and part of Perekopsky — had a substantial land fund to be alienated. Since the implementation of the Land Order in life in the area closest to the enemy was particularly revealing, we decided to start the county land council in these counties in the first place - gradually going down to the south. In Yalta district, it was not supposed to open land institutions due to the absence of large state-owned and privately owned agricultural properties and the resort value of the coastal strip. The volost land council was established here later - and only for one volost attached to the Simferopol district land council. After the occupation of a part of Berdyansk district, a post of district mediator was established in it.
The Russian army carried the peasants a new law on the land - and the Bolsheviks did everything possible to prevent the spread of information about this among the population.
In early July, district mediators with a staff of assistants and surveyors began work. And by the end of July in a number of volosts, despite the difficulties of wartime, the elections to the volost land councils were completed. Despite the suffering, the peasants willingly participated in them. The councils turned out to be many advanced peasants, as well as quite a few representatives of the local intelligentsia (justices of the peace, teachers, agronomists).
Land councils began work.
Moreover, the peasants, while carrying out the latest field work, were sometimes assisted by troops. In a number of rich volosts, wealthy peasants immediately bought land from the owners. In general, in all territories, land legislation was perceived very favorably.
In drawing up projects on the size of land parcels left by the owners, the volost land councils focused on the 100 - 150 tithe figure - but some recognized the need to take into account the multi-family nature of the owners, their participation in the Civil War, their personal contribution to the management, etc. In accordance with this, the size of farms reached 400 - 600 (in Simferopol district) tithes. There were cases when the owners were supposed to leave the peasant rate. That is, the issue was resolved quite democratically.
In a number of volosts the department of agriculture and land management opened the points where the bread brought by the peasants to the redemption land payments was received.
Command of the Russian Army and members of the government P. N. Wrangel
The agrarian reform of P. N. Wrangel set the first and foremost task of a radical solution of the land question - assuming a lawful transition, by means of a buyout, of all the lands that could be processed, into the hands of the peasants, who cultivated them. Moreover, these lands immediately or in the short term were transferred to them as property. We see that the successors of P. A. Stolypin (P. N. Wrangel and V. I. Lenin) relied on the formation of a strong class of small landowners — the middle peasantry. But if for the Bolsheviks it was a temporary tactical move, the Wrangel reform was conceived "seriously and for a long time" - fully responding to the aspirations of the peasantry, the traditional bastion of Russian statehood.
The principles of compulsory alienation (from former owners) and repurchase (by new owners), which were the basis of Wrangel law, were in full compliance with the current legislation - having gone from the scope of “emergency” measures typical of the era of the Civil War. With the help of the redemption payments system, the government wanted to satisfy the former landowners, and although the reform idea was somewhat hurt by the high size of these payments, the peasants knew that they were getting the land forever - legally, and the redemption payments could be set aside (the law allowed it) and even canceled.
But the time limit allotted to the White movement, expired. God traditionally remained on the side of the big battalions, and the unequal position of the parties to the conflict proclaimed the imminent fall of the white south. Despite all the positive characteristics of the new land legislation, it was overdue - and for objective reasons, the reform was never brought to its logical conclusion.
An outstanding political figure and an outstanding frontline commander, P.N. Wrangel was one of the most significant figures in the horizon of the Civil War in Russia. In the shortest possible time, he managed to create from the remnants of the All-Soviet Union of Defense forces a cohesive and efficient army that stood firmly on the foundation of regular principles. He implemented the much-needed reforms: land and local government. It was possible to restore the relative law and order. But the general is simply not enough resources, especially the most important of them - time. Perhaps a contemporary was right, who believed that if a similar land law had been issued not by P.N. Wrangel 25 in May 1920, but by A. I. Denikin two years earlier, the results of the Civil War would have been completely different. After all, if without the land law, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia reached Orel and Voronezh, then with the land law, of course, attracted the main peasant masses to them (remember the classic words that any peasant is first and foremost an owner), they are probably would reach Moscow.
Active actions at the front, together with qualitative reforms in the liberated territories, would have been a death sentence for the Bolshevik regime. PN Wrangel understood this perfectly well, who once said that it was possible not to liberate Russia during the triumphal march to Moscow, but by creating at least on a patch of Russian land such an order and conditions of life that would draw all the forces and the thoughts of the people groaning under the red yoke.
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