Wilbur also highlights another possible error made in the understanding of increases in peasant leasing, something traditionalists view as a clear sign of ‘land hunger’. In Voronezh leasing was an activity better associated with the prosperous rather than the poor, as in the prosperous counties 78% of the farms leased land, and this amounted to half of the land put under crop. Whilst in the middle-income counties 69 percent of farms leased 37 percent of the land under crops, and in the poorer counties the leasing reduced even more
. This trend suggests that in Voronezh leasing was instigated to maximise land under crops in order to produce a surplus for market, leasing is therefore not necessarily a product of economic stress.
Finally Wilbur argues that fallow reduction was not the effect of an increased peasant population forced to increase food production. This is because in Voronezh fallow reductions are numerous in the more prosperous, and middle-income counties, 47 percent for the former and 36 percent for the later, reducing fallow to below 25 percent of the total land cultivated. Whilst in the poorer counties only 28 percent of the counties reduce their fallow to these levels, see
Table III . Wilbur believes this happened because there were two types of fallow reduction ‘opportunity’, and ‘need induced’. Of the reductions made in the prosperous counties Wilbur claims 75 percent were ‘opportunity’ based, this is to say that production was increased to provide a surplus for market, in the middle counties the split is closer to 50 percent. Whilst among the poor, fallow reductions were ‘need induced’ due to economic stress. Thus Wilbur concludes that the traditional view that in areas like Voronezh the peasants were impoverished by the end of the nineteenth century is “oversimplified and badly stated”
.
In James Symms work ‘The Crop failure of 1891: Soil exhaustion, technological backwardness and Russia’s ‘Agrarian crisis,’ Symms argues against the ‘crisis hypothesis’, which is used by traditionalists as an example of the failure of serf emancipation. Whereas Kemp believes it was the preservation of the mir, and with it traditional techniques, that made agriculture inefficient and exposed to famine Symms argues simply that “The vicissitudes of weather determined the harvest in Tsarist Russia”
. According to Symms the peasant methods were not unambiguously backward given the climate and soil conditions in the black earth and green lands, and Russian farmland was not becoming exhausted. However although the immediate cause of the 1891 crop failure was a severe winter, and drought in summer, liberals and radicals at the time blamed land renting, soil exhaustion, and general backwardness of peasant farming. A conservative press printed at the time that such situations “always produced a harvest of liberal chatter”
. One of the loudest voices amongst the liberals named Plekhanov, in blaming the situation on political error completely ignored climatic conditions. Symms accepts that although scholars such as Kemp maintain that soil exhaustion and technological backwardness was forced by government policy on the small peasant, there is no direct evidence to actually prove this
. In fact between 1893 and 1896 Russia experienced excellent harvests, and those of 1893, 94 and 95, constitute the best three harvests in the entire century
see
Table IV. Symms cites Geroid T. Robinson whose data shows that yields from peasants increased from 29 poods per desiatina between 1861-70 and 39 poods per desiatina between 1891-1900
. This certainly contradicts suggestions that the soil was being exhausted, as harvests would have deteriorated in time.
Symms highlights the moisture level in soil as the more important factor in successful harvests, and because of this Russian peasant’s agricultural techniques were appropriate for the climate and moisture shortage. The sokha
is seen by many historians as an old fashioned backward instrument because it did not cut soil as deep as a steel plow
. However the historian Khvostar expresses the opinion that the majority of the landlords in central black earth districts saw that the steel plow did not produce a better harvest than the sokha plow. Symms believes that in actual fact shallow plowing helped to preserve moisture by exposing less subsoil
. Others have claimed that Russian peasants did not use the latest seeds, and fertilizer, but Symms points out that the dry arid conditions in Russia made many foreign seeds unsuitable, and fertilizers often caused crops to rise too early which under Russian conditions spoilt them. Therefore these traditional husbandry techniques that Kemp sees as backward, appear to be the best solution at the time to a completely unique Russian problem. One of Kemp’s other main criticisms is that of the three-field system, labelled “very backward and irrational” by Petr liashchenko
. Again Symm’s revisionist viewpoint has the explanation for its existence, and this is that the three-field system was excellent in retaining moisture in the soil, the one main problem in Russian agriculture
. Thus we can conclude from Symms argument that the western methods traditional historians believe Russia should have adopted would have been unsuitable for the climate.
Finally I wish to bring to your attention the question of the redemption payments the peasants were forced to make to the mir. Again using the work of James Symms we will see that the burden of taxation was not as high as traditionally thought. In
Table V arrears payments can be seen to be increasing, this would suggest, and traditional historians agree, that this was proof of the distress in Russia. Symms however believes that it was not that the peasants could not afford to pay, but instead that they did not want to, and avoided it. A long with data for the redemption arrears Symms provides us with data in
Table VI of receipts from indirect taxes. These between 1886-1899 more than triple, this increase is seen by Symms as an indicator that peasants could afford to buy consumer goods. Critics of this ‘arrears hypothesis’ believe that it was not necessarily the agricultural peasants who paid these indirect taxes, claiming it could have been the urban workers, or a small group of wealthy peasants. In response to this Symms highlights that advocates of the ‘crisis theory’ are stuck with the dilemma that, either the peasants made redemption payments and were also consumers of non-agricultural goods. Or they made redemption payments but the consumers of non-agricultural goods were in the towns, or amongst richer peasants
. Either way this demonstrates that the peasants were not necessarily exploited, and peasant husbandry was not ruined by monetary demands. Olga Crisp takes a similar view believing that “the payments…. were not higher and were often lower than the average rents payable by the serfs before 1861”
. Crisp also questions whether redemption payments restricted the peasant’s purchasing power, and whether the commune constrained their immobility. In Crisps view slow growth in industry after emancipation stemmed from the general backwardness of the Russian economy, rather than specific deficiencies in the emancipation. Crisp believed emancipation stimulated growth, but government budgetary, financial reform, and railway building, did more to promote industrialisation than the abolition of serfdom
.
In conclusion although there is an over dependence on the work of Elvira Wilbur and James Symms in this essay they adequately prove that the traditional understanding of Serf Emancipation is based on inaccurate data and simple theory. The revisionist viewpoint raises enough questions to suggest that peasants were more prosperous than first thought, and increases in renting, as well as decreases in fallow do not necessarily indicate economic stress. There is also no evidence to suggest that peasants exhausted the soil, and husbandry methods including the three-field system were appropriate for climatic conditions. Finally the burden of taxation was not as high as we are led to believe, and thus did not necessarily confine peasants to the village. In contradiction to Tom Kemp’s statement that emancipation acted as a brake on both agriculture and industry, I believe this demonstrates Russia agriculture was not as backward as traditionally thought, and poor growth in Russian industry was not as a direct result of the failure of emancipation.
