One of the important normative acts established in Russia in the 40s of the 19th century was the Inventory reform of Nicholas 1, which spread throughout Belarus, Lithuania and the Right-Bank Ukraine. Its purpose was to limit the abuse and arbitrariness perpetrated by the landowners. They prescribed the annual filing of “inventories” - detailed descriptions of their property, partly fulfilling the role of modern income declarations.
Good initiative
The need for reform was caused by the aggravation of social tension in the country, which became a consequence of the general crisis of the feudal system that has not yet been completely eliminated. The first to point out to her, as a possible solution to the problem, was the head of the Vitebsk province P.K. Lvov. He was sent a memo addressed to the head of the Ministry of State Property, who in those years was a prominent statesman, General Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev (his portrait is given below). Thanks to the minister, his initiative was further developed.
Very cautious in his actions, Kiselev turned to the emperor Nikolai Pavlovich with the proposal to introduce the obligatory supply of inventories only to those landowners whose estates were taken into state custody in view of their abuses. His position, supported as a whole, at the same time did not receive the highest approval regarding a number of significant details.
Features of the ongoing reform
In its final form, the Inventory Reform of Nicholas 1, firstly, affected all landowners, and not only those who were compromised, and, secondly, was limited only to the territories of the western provinces. Researchers do not have a single opinion on why this decision was made.
According to the generally accepted point of view, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich refused to carry out reform in Central Russia because of the stubbornness of the landowners living on its territory and unwillingness to enter into conflict with them. In addition, there is an opinion that such a step was caused by the intention to attract the peasants of the western provinces to the side of the government and thereby reduce the likelihood of a new Polish uprising.
Having outlined in writing the main provisions of the future Inventory reform, Nikolai 1 entrusted its detailed development to Count L. A. Perovsky, who at that time held the post of Minister of the Interior and was one of his most trusted representatives. In addition, many senior officials from the Committee of Western Provinces took part in the work.
The first stage of the implementation of the new law
Preparation for the reform was completed in the summer of 1840, and on August 13 the first part of the sovereign Manifesto, published in the court printing house, became the property of the general public. It was a decree on the implementation of legislative restrictions on the property rights of landowners convicted of various kinds of abuse.
The document was distributed, as suggested by Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev, only in the western provinces of Russia. However, according to historians, the majority of landowners who belonged to this category were able to evade its execution under various pretexts. It was impossible to put up with this state of affairs, since it not only created a threat to the internal political stability of the state, but also undermined the prestige of the monarchy.
Introduction of the next regulatory act
The next stage of the Inventory Reform of Nicholas 1 was the publication in April 1844 of a law on the basis of which public committees were created in all nine western provinces of Russia, designed to monitor the compilation and timely provision of all reporting documentation by the landowners. These structures, new at that time, consisted of five local landowners, elected by the provincial noble assembly, and four officials. The management of the committees was vested in civilian governors.
Plans and their implementation
According to the emperor, the installed inventories were in effect for six years and were not supposed to infringe on the rights of law-abiding landowners. However, their temporary restrictions were introduced in order to give an objective assessment of the measures taken during the specified period and, if necessary, make appropriate changes to the law.
Among the statesmen of that era who made a significant contribution to the fulfillment of sovereign plans, historians note the Kiev Governor-General D. G. Bibikov. In addition to the law of 1844, he personally drafted and implemented a number of regulatory acts aimed at strengthening control over the management of landlords' estates on his territory. This set of documents has undergone two editions. In 1847, its first edition was published, and a year later the second.
They wanted the best, but it turned out ...
As history has shown, all these measures did not solve the problems that caused the Inventory reform of Nicholas 1. The Polish question continued to remain open for a long time, until, finally, in 1863 it led to a powerful uprising, the bloody suppression of which left an indelible stain on the next Russian monarch Alexander 2. As regards the establishment of state control over the property of the landowners and the suppression of various kinds of abuse on their part (especially evasion of paying due taxes), this positive shifts were hardly noticeable.
The reason for such an obvious “slipping” of Nicholas 1’s Inventory Reform lies primarily in the fact that not all governors reacted properly to its implementation. The surviving historical documents paint a rather variegated picture of those years. It can be seen, for example, that if by 1848 inventories were widespread in the Vilnius Governor General and they covered 100% of the landlords, then in Vitebsk this indicator did not exceed 10%, which did not have any good reason.
The result of many years of work
On the whole, the results of the Inventory Reform of Nicholas 1 were disappointing because of the slowness and slowness of the bureaucracy created by him. Work on its implementation was carried out extremely slowly and was not completed by the beginning of the next reign. In 1857, they were completely interrupted by Alexander 2, in view of the beginning of the preparation of his famous reform to abolish serfdom.
The opinion of modern scholars about what the reform brought directly to the peasants is extremely contradictory. Most of them believe that their situation, which is already extremely difficult, only worsened due to the fact that the landlords indicated fictitious data in the inventories. At the same time, a number of historians indicate that for the first time peasants were given the opportunity to complain if the norms indicated in the inventories were exceeded by their serf owners. However, none of them gives an answer to the question of how real peasants could use this right and what were the consequences of such actions.