The abolition of serfdom [ID] in Russia in 1861 and the ensuing reforms (in local self-government [ID], the courts [ID], the military [ID], education [ID], censorship [ID], etc.) are events of vital importance, a break and turning point in our country's history. The reformers themselves, their contemporaries, researchers, the classics of Russian literature, and the founders of Marxism all agree with this appraisal. Interest in the history of the reforms, which were called "great" [ID] in pre-revolutionary historiography and "bourgeois" in Soviet historiography, has been particularly intense and has assumed political overtones at certain times, as, for example, during the Revolution of 1905-1907 [ID]. Nowadays [in the era of Gorbachev's "Perestroika" [ID], the massive reform program in the last years of the old Soviet Union], it might be said, such interest has reached the highest point it has known during the entire 125 years that separate us from the event itself....

WHAT WAS SIGNIFICANT ABOUT 1856? Alexander II ascended to the throne in February 1855. On the 18th, the day Nicholas I died, the manifesto concerning his accession was issued and on the 19th the State Council took an oath to the new emperor and his successor. Unlike 1825 [ID], the transfer of power was smooth. The death of Nicholas I coincided with and laid bare the crisis of the military-police system that had lasted thirty years and had been created to counter the ideas of the Decembrists and progress.

The first powerful blow to Nicholas's system came from without. The defeat suffered in the Crimean War [ID] (1853-1856) had shown the real state of Russia. The country not only emerged defeated from the war but also found itself isolated internationally....

Is it really by accident that the government's first proclamation concerning the future reforms, obscure and vague as it was, appeared in the Manifesto of March 19, 1856, which announced the terms of the Treaty of Paris [ID] that [formally ended the Crimean War and] brought Russia no glory? "Let good internal order be affirmed and achieved (in Russia); let truth and mercy reign in her courts; let a longing for education and every useful activity develop everywhere with fresh vigor and let each and every person with justice for all be protected under the rule of law and universal justice, and let the fruits of the labor of the innocent be enjoyed in peace." A few days later, responding to widespread rumors and fears among the gentry that had been aroused precisely by these words of the manifesto, Alexander II uttered his famous pronouncement before marshals of the nobility in Moscow on March 30, 1856, in which he spoke of the liberation of the serfs: "It is far better that this come from above than from below."

Dissatisfaction gripped every level in society; it provoked a stream of hand-written accusatory communications and plans for reform, a regular underground literature. It seemed as though the whole of thinking Russia had started writing. A passionate, uncontrollable demand for society to express itself swept away the prohibition Nicholas I had imposed on the printed word [ID], which had led from 1848 to 1855 to a "terror of censorship." M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, who returned from exile at this time and landed in Moscow before proceeding to St. Petersburg (for service in the Ministry of Internal Affairs), was astounded how freely everybody was expressing his opinion everywhere and on everything. Ordinary people, officials, the intelligentsia, and the leadership were talking on the streets, in homes, in taverns, and in salons....

This openness [glasnost'] sprang spontaneously from below. The government lagged behind events; it renounced the worst forms of censorship but continued to eye openness askance. Keenly sensing his country's demand for truth after such a long period of silence and lies, Alexander Herzen [ID] began to publish Poliarnaia zvezda [Polar Star] (1855), Golosa iz Rossii [Voices from Russia] (1856), and lastly Kolokol [The Bell] (1857), which were known to everyone who could read, from the tsar and his highest officials down to provincial gentry and clergy in the most remote areas, to say nothing of students. In Russia proper, publications that reflected the thaw began to appear "like mushrooms after a rain" (to use the expression of Tolstoy [ID] upon his return from Sevastopol ' ) .

Openness is yet another word that symbolizes the unique year of 1856. Openness unmasked, but its pathos lay in creation. It brought a wave of optimism and bright hope; it aroused government and society to action and curbed the fear that had nurtured Nicholas's system. The release of society's spiritual force preceded the reforms and constituted a prerequisite for them.... As early as January 1857 the ruling elite and Alexander II learned the true financial position, which was extremely bad and ominous.

During the war years, from 1853 to 1856, ordinary expenditures increased the budget deficit almost sevenfold, from nine million to al most sixty-one million silver rubles and the total deficit went up six-fold from fifty-two mil lion to 307 million rubles....

At first, particularly in 1856, innovation in domestic policy expressed itself in the removal of numerous prohibitions. This involved abolishing the restrictions that had been imposed on universities after 1848, eliminating the military settlements [ID] and the governor-general ships in Khar'kov and Vitebsk, reaching the decision freely to issue passports for travel abroad (which increased from 6,000 to 26,000 persons, more than fourfold, from 1856 to 1859), easing censorship, offering opportunities "to establish trading links with foreign countries and to import the latest European scientific achievements from them," shrinking the army, forgiving arrears, and freeing for three years taxpaying estates from military conscription, as well as other measures. Of special importance was a proclamation issued during the coronation ceremonies in August 1856, freeing political prisoners.... Nine thousand were released from administrative and police surveillance....

CHOOSING THE WAY:
 OVERCOMING OLD MODELS AND DEVISING. A NEW ONE

Preparation for the reform began in a purely traditional manner, when the regular Secret Committee assembled in the Winter Palace in January 1857. But because of the "thaw", old traditions suddenly produced new effects. As early as the second session, the statesmen of Nicholas's era decided that the government should publish an edict on the peasant question for general consumption, print it, frame it in glass and circulate it in all provinces, districts, and remote outposts of the empire in order to "calm turbulent minds." Even the chief of police expressed himself in favor of this move. The edict was not issued, but this episode reveals how unexpectedly life had intruded upon the "holy of holies" in the government mechanism. Another ten months had to pass before secrecy was removed from this committee and from the peasant question....

The rescripts [instructions approved and signed by the emperor in November and December, 1857] were not at all radical. They still had nothing to say about "liberating the peasantry," only about "an improvement in life," but the documents accompanying them made it clear that this phrase meant abolition of peasants' personal dependency. The rescripts formulated the chief question, involving the land, in an even more vague and contradictory way. Landlords were to keep their property and peasants could anticipate no more than a right to redeem small plots and to occupy their allotments. But the terms under which they could use them, how long an allotment might be kept and its size, and, above all, what the ultimate goal was, "perpetual" use, like the case of agricultural implements in the southwestern provinces or freedom without land as in the northwestern ones, remained open. The rescripts had come down "from above," which meant they had to be acted upon. The gentry obtained the right to form local provincial committees [ID] to draft reforms for each province following the rescripts. It was assumed that each would devise its own plan and rules, which would be introduced gradually from west to east.

Shaken by the publicity given to the peasant question and the firm commitment to reform, the bulk of the gentry failed to respond to the government's initiatives calling upon them to take action. The Nizhnii Novgorod nobility alone sent an "all-embracing" request to obtain the rescript, which was done immediately.... The stand-off lasted two months and was only broken with difficulty on January 16, 1858. After this, one group after another among the local gentry took up the task, set to work on rescripts in reply, and formed provincial gentry committees. Their "initiatives" were apparent. In 1858 and early 1859 forty-six provincial committees, comprising 1,500 persons, were established in European Russia. Elected to those committees, which composed responses addressed to Alexander II, were some 44,000 gentry, forty percent of the total number who possessed serfs. This is the way the techniques for reform began to come into existence. In every provincial committee two "members of the government" were designated in order to control the actions of the gentry, whom the government had summoned into public life.

After a delay of three months since its activities had become known, the Secret Committee came out in the open and was renamed the Main Committee. Although its composition stayed the same, the scope of its activity, tempo, and style of work underwent a change.... The Main Committee was involved in a struggle that had exploded among the gentry in various places over the question of what concrete steps had to be taken and how many concessions would have to be made to the peasantry.... In addition to those who supported or opposed the abolition of serfdom, there were others who advocated different ways for the country to develop variations on the reform. The Main Committee found itself caught up in the maelstrom of events, to which it was forced to react. Telegrams poured into St. Petersburg, couriers arrived from the "majorities" and "minorities" on the gentry committees: so-and-so needs support; so-and so must be turned down; and inquiries came in concerning the obscure programmatic positions found in the rescripts. At the same time, provincial committees on their own initiative held public meetings in the field. There were stormy scenes of uncensored fighting and brawling. Leaders of the group had bodyguards; Yurii Samarin carried a revolver. The committees began to forge links among themselves. They learned how to discuss and resolve matters of state; they learned methods of political struggle and the rudiments of constitutionalism....

This openness assumed forms the government had not anticipated and brought about unexpected consequences [ID]. The press grew bold and temporarily forgot the limits the rescript had imposed, and the censorship could not cope with events. But the government followed the situation in the country with great care....

Government policy fluctuated between the reactionaries and the liberal bureaucrats. In the spring of 1858, the Main Committee was inclined to free the peasants without land and also to a scheme that would establish everywhere a military administration based on Governors-General. At that particular time, the journal Sovremennik was harassed. It was withdrawn from circulation, and the April number, containing an article by K D. Kavelin which spelled out that the ultimate goal of the reform was to force the peasantry to redeem fertile land as property, was banned. Kavelin fell into disfavor, was deprived of his post as tutor to the heir, and was denied any direct participation in the peasant reform. In addition, on April 15 and 22, a circular was issued in the department of the censorship that forbade any discussion of the peasant question in the press....

A new concept had made its way into the realm of official government policy and became prevalent: the ultimate goal of the reform was to transform former serfs into proprietors of their own allotments, eliminate the patrimonial power of the landlords, and legally involve the peasantry in the life of the state. This switch in government policy, which took place during October and November 1858, was due to the activities of Adjutant General Ya. I. Rostovtsev, a member of the Main Committee, whom Alexander 11 trusted completely. After six months of intensive work on the social and political situation, Rostovtsev, who had thought and agonized much, rejected the variant that freed the peasants without land and for all practical purposes accepted liberal notions and reform goals, which the government as early as April 1858 had forbidden and persecuted.... Rostovtsev expounded his views on the goals of the peasant reform in four letters to the tsar in August and September 1858. Alexander instructed the Main Committee to discuss them.

Two questions of principle collided in its stormy sessions: either leave all property under the control of landlords and create a strong landlord economy after emancipation or allot land to the peasants as their own property, which they would redeem. After the reform, two kinds of agriculture would then exist in the countryside, large landlord holdings and small peasant properties. First, Lanskoi succeeded in negotiating with the liberal fraction on the Tver' Provincial Committee to expand the redemption to include fields for the peasants, not merely plots. Next, with pressure from Alexander II, who agreed with Rostovtsev, the government adopted a peasant reform program that differed from the rescripts, and the monarch ratified it on December 4, 1858. It would allow peasants to redeem land and form a class of peasant property owners. Most Main Committee members were violently opposed, but the tsar cut off debate and declared the question closed....

While the reform was being drawn up, the move from secrecy to openness begun at the end of 1857 intensified late in 1858 when the government dropped its opposition to having the peasants redeem the land and admitted the fundamental purpose of the reform was to create a class of peasant proprietors while still preserving manorial agriculture. This led to a regrouping of forces among the "authorities," and the liberal bureaucracy now took on the leading role in the peasant question.

THE MECHANISM OF CREATION AND THE MECHANISM OF DELAY;
THE DIE IS CAST; THE REFORMS

[O]n February 17, 1859, Alexander II sanctioned the formation of a special commission, with the sole proviso that Rostovtsev serve as its chairman. Its modest title of Editing Commissions fully corresponded with the ideas of the members of the Main Committee, who thought it was formed as a kind of sub-commission....

The new institution was primarily nontraditional in that most of its members were liberal activists. Naturally the commissions contained serf-owners, but they constituted a minority. P. A. Valuev, a savage opponent of the commissions, had every reason to say: "they were set up in such a way so that no one could oppose the majority.". . . The fact that a liberal majority had formed in the commissions took on exceptional significance. This was due to the disposition of forces among the provincial committees and the gentry at large, the bureaucracy and officialdom, the higher and central power entities and local administrations, where liberals constituted a minority. Thus the Editing Commissions became very anxious to support liberal minorities on provincial committees....

Openness as a policy tool of the autocracy assumed a vital role in the activities of the Editorial Commissions. On fixed days after their meetings 3,000 copies of their journals, or protocols, were published and distributed to senior officials, provincial headquarters, marshals of the nobility, and various important men and officeholders, and they also went where they were not supposed to go, as, for example, to Herzen [ID] and Chernyshevskii [ID]. But such openness had not yet become part of the bourgeois order [SAC emphasis]. The liberal majority on the Editing Commissions restricted openness and publicity with respect to statements made by the conservative and reactionary opposition.

The fate of the peasantry and the country was not decided in open political contest or in class struggles. The new nontraditional institution functioned within the serf monarchy and had not shaken off the traditions of feudal organization and political culture [SAC emphasis]. "All minds" were obliged to use the works produced by the commissions. Their leaders deliberately used publicity to rally the liberal forces, disseminate and make known their reform program, and prevent any possibility of its being revised or of the government's going back on its word....

The liberal majority on the Editing Commissions conceived of the peasant reform as a revolution embodied in a single legal act. The first stage would be to free landlord serfs from personal dependency; the final one to convert all of them into petty property owners while still preserving a substantial part of gentry land and large landlord estates. They planned to achieve their goal peacefully and avoid the revolutionary upheavals that had shaken countries in Western and Central Europe. This would be a distinctive characteristic of the reform and Russia's future agricultural development....

Specifically, this meant constructing the reform on the basis of "existing reality," that is, gentry would keep its lands for large-scale agriculture while allowing the peasants to keep their pre-reform plots, initially rented on payment of imposts, and subsequently as their own property in return for redemption payments.... Redemption payments lay at the heart of the reform. They were not required of landlords. Alexander II stated: "As long as even a single member of the gentry opposes redemption of peasant allotments I shall not permit compulsory redemption." Forced to reckon with this insurmountable obstacle, the Editing Commissions devised an internal mechanism for the reform to ensure the movement would not be interrupted or take on a life of its own. Permanent tenure and unalterable taxes would literally force landlords to accept redemption.... The peasants likewise really had no choice. Determined to avoid the growth of a proletariat, as had happened in Europe, but also aware that the economic circumstances surrounding the liberation of the peasantry were harsh and landlords would do anything in their power to make them worse, the framers of the programs inserted a clause into the law that forbade peasants from alienating an allotment for nine years. When the law went into force this period was extended. This was the main reason why the commune was preserved to hold the land....

The change in the legal position of the peasantry was even more thoroughgoing and decisive. Abolishing personal dependency and depriving landlords of patrimonial power thrust many millions of peasants into the life of society, although they all remained a tax paying estate. Peasants now could regulate themselves through regional and rural societies (based on the commune) with officials elected at meetings conducted by the peasantry. Under the control of local administrations and performing financial tasks, such entities also looked out for peasant interests against the landlords, yesterday's serf-owners. They were instrumental in involving peasants in other reforms, such as the zemstvos, and serving on juries. It was assumed that in time it would be easier to leave the commune, mutual guarantees [krugovaia poruka] would be abolished, and the commune would gradually lose its hold over the individual peasant. Social estates would be replaced by universal citizenship, and the in evitable land shortage experienced by some peasants would be mitigated by grants of state land. The initiative displayed by the monarchy was a symbol of faith in the liberal bureaucracy. The faith seemed justified by the fact that constitutional change was not at the moment on the agenda of the liberal-bureaucratic group. The initiative [and faith] the monarchy demonstrated seemed a special guarantee of the reforms that followed abolition of serfdom. This was the weakest link in the liberal bureaucracy's political conception, but another was the related notion that it would be possible to achieve equality between peasants and other social estates without granting real freedom for those "favored" [ex-serfs]. This was why they were prohibited from leaving the land, had to give mutual guarantees, experienced difficulties in quitting the commune, and corporal punishment continued....

The abolition of serfdom was a watershed in Russia's history. Serfdom as a system of social relationships had ceased to exist, although many of its characteristics survived until 1917. Describing the countryside after the reform, Tolstoy used Konstantin Levin in Anna Karenina as his spokesman: "Among us now, when everything has changed and is in the process of settling down, the one important question in Russia is how to arrange matters." These words moved Lenin [ID] to observe: "It is difficult to imagine a more apt characterization of Russia from 1861 to 1905." In his opinion, the most vital question was "how to establish this structure, the bourgeois structure, in Russia."