A history of Russia
Page 26
Serfdom. Muscovite Society
Serfdom was the mainstay of Muscovite agriculture. Serf labor supported the gentry and thus the entire structure of the state. As we saw earlier, certain types of peasant bondage originated in the days of Kiev, and had undergone centuries of evolution before the times of Ivan the Terrible and Tsar Alexis. Originally, it would seem, peasant dependence on the landlords began through contracts: in return for a loan of money, grain, or agricultural tools, the peasant would promise to pay dues, the quitrent or obrok, to the landlord and perform work, the corvee or barshchina, for him. Although made for a period ranging from one to ten years, the agreements tended to continue, for the peasant could rarely pay off his obligations. Indeed his annual contributions to the landlord's economy often constituted merely interest on the loan. Invasions, civil wars, droughts, epidemics, and other disasters, so frequent in Russian history in the period from the fall of Kiev to the rise of Moscow, increased peasant dependence and bondage. Gradually it became possible for the peasant to leave his master only once a year, around St. George's day in late autumn, provided, of course, his debts had been paid.
All these developments that laid the foundations for full-fledged serfdom - which were discussed in previous chapters - preceded the Muscovite period proper. Yet the contributions which the Muscovite system itself made to serfdom should not be underestimated. The new pomestie agriculture meant that bondage spread rapidly as lands with peasants were granted by the tsar to his gentry servitors. It is worth noting that serfdom predominated in southern, southeastern, and, in large part, western Russia, but not
in the huge northern territories which faced no enemy and needed no gentry officers. The government continued to promote the interests of the gentry, in particular by its efforts to limit or eliminate peasant transfer and to stop peasant flights. While it is now generally agreed that no law directly establishing serfdom was ever issued, certain legislative acts contributed to that end. In particular the government proclaimed forbidden years, that is, years when the peasants could not move - or, more realistically, be moved by those who paid their obligations - even around St. George's day. We know, for example, of such legislation in regard to many categories of peasants in 1601 and 1602. Also, the government proceeded to lengthen the period of time after which a fugitive serf could no longer be returned to his master: from five years at the end of the sixteenth century to an indefinite term, as we find it in the Ulozhenie of 1649. Further, in 1607 and other years, the state legislated penalties for harboring fugitive serfs; while the first census, taken from 1550 to 1580, as well as later ones, also helped the growth of serfdom by providing a record of peasant residence and by listing children of serfs in the same category as their parents.
With the Ulozhenie of 1649, serfdom can be considered as fully established in the Muscovite state. The new code disregarded the once important distinction between old settlers and new peasants, considering as serfs all tillers of soil on private holdings, and their progeny; it eliminated, as already indicated, any statute of limitations for fugitives; and it imposed heavy penalties for harboring them. Although a few highly special exceptions remained, the Vlozhenie in essence assumed the principle "once a serf always a serf" and gave full satisfaction to the gentry. Vladimirsky-Budanov and others have argued convincingly that after 1649 the government continued to consider the serfs its responsible subjects rather than merely gentry property; nevertheless, in fact their position in relation to their masters deteriorated rapidly. Their obligations undefined, the serfs were at the mercy of the landlords, who came to exercise increasing judicial and police authority on their estates. By the end of the century, the buying, selling, and willing of serfs had developed; that is, they were treated virtually as slaves.
Serfdom in Russia had a number of striking characteristics. It has been observed that serfdom commenced and ended first in western Europe, and that the time lag increases as we consider areas further east. Thus in Russia, and also Poland, it appeared and disappeared last. Serfdom in Russia appeared simultaneously with a centralized monarchy not with any kind of feudalism. It resulted from two major factors: the old and growing economic dependence of the peasant on the landlord, and the activity of the Muscovite government in support of the gentry. Pre-revolutionary Russian historians, with some notable exceptions, emphasized the first element; Soviet scholars paid particular attention to the second, as did an American specialist, Hellie, in a recent reconsideration of the issue.
Lower classes in Muscovite Russia included slaves and state peasants as well as serfs. Slaves continued to play a significant role in large households and on large estates. More people joined this category during the disturbances and disasters of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by selling themselves into slavery. With the growth and final triumph of serfdom, the distinction between slaves and serfs became less and less pronounced. State peasants, that is, peasants who owed their obligations to the state rather than to a private landlord, constituted the bulk of the population in the north and the northeast. Although they were regulated by the state, and although their obligations increased with the development of the Muscovite tsardom, their position was far superior to that of the serfs.
The townspeople, or middle classes, consisted of merchants, subdivided into several hierarchical groups, and artisans. For reasons of fiscal control, trade was strictly regulated as to its location and nature. In general, the government levied the greater part of its taxes in the towns. Also, the merchants had to serve the tsar in state finance and state commerce. The latter included the monopoly of foreign trade and of certain products sold at home, such as wine and tobacco, as well as the greatest single interest in the fur trade and other interests. As the Ulozhenie of 1649 and other evidence indicate, the merchants and artisans, as well as the serfs and peasants, tended to become a closed caste, with sons following the occupation of their fathers.
Landlords can be considered the upper class of Muscovite Russia. They ranged from extremely rich and influential boyars to penniless servitors of the tsar who frequently could not meet their service obligations. Yet, as already indicated, with the growth of the pomestie system and the uniform extension and standardization of state service, differences diminished in importance and the landlords gradually coalesced into a fairly homogeneous class of service gentry.
The history of the mestnichestvo illustrates well the peculiar adjustment of ancient Russian princely and boyar families to Muscovite state service, as well as the eventual discarding of the arrangements they cherished in favor of uniformity, efficiency, and merit. The mestnichestvo may be described as the system of state appointments in which the position of a given person had to correspond to the standing of his family and to his own place in the family; nobody who ranked lower on the mestnichestvo scale could be appointed above him. The resulting cumbersomeness, inefficiency, and complication can easily be imagined. For example, the system led to deplorable rigidity in the assignment of military commands. A Muscovite army consisted of five segments or regiments: the big or main regiment, the right arm or wing, the left arm or wing, the forward regiment or advance guard, and the security regiment or rear guard. In the honor of command, the main regiment came first, followed by the right wing, the advance guard and the rear guard which were considered equal, and finally
the left wing. The refined calculations involved in awarding these appointments in accordance with the mestnichestvo had nothing to do with military ability. Moreover, the system made it extremely difficult in any case for a man of talent who did not belong to a leading aristocratic family to receive an important command. True, the government proclaimed certain campaigns exempt from the mestnichestvo, and on other occasions it kept high-ranking but unintelligent boyars in Moscow "for advice," while entrusting the direction in the field to abler hands. But these measures proved to be at best palliatives. The same encumbrance hindered the operation of the state machine in civil matters.
The mestnichestv
o dated formally from 1475, when boyar families in the Muscovite service were entered into the state genealogical book and all appointments began to be listed in special registers which became indispensable for subsequent assignments. The boyars valued their own and their families' "honor" and "just position" extremely highly, all the more so because any occasional downgrading would be added to the permanent record. The history of Muscovite government often resembled one long squabble among boyars over "honor" and appointments, with some of them dramatically determined to eat sitting on the floor, rather than at a position at the table which they considered below their rank. Even Ivan the Terrible, who dealt so violently with the boyars, failed to abrogate the mestnichestvo. It disappeared at last, as already mentioned, a full century later in 1682 to allow greater simplicity and uniformity in the service and more reward for merit in the interests of Muscovite absolutism and gentry.
Muscovite Institutions
Muscovite tsars developed the emphasis on autocracy that was begun by Muscovite grand princes. They truthfully claimed to be absolute rulers of perhaps ten to fifteen million subjects. Yet they did not exercise their high authority alone: the boyar duma persisted as their constant companion, and a new important state institution, the zemskii sobor, appeared. Both the boyar duma and the zemskii sobor deserve attention for a number of reasons, not the least of which stems from their interesting and suggestive resemblances to Western institutions.
The boyar duma of the Muscovite tsars represented, of course, a continuation of the boyar duma of the Muscovite grand princes. However, in the conditions of a new age, it gradually underwent certain changes. Thus although it still included the great boyars, an increasing portion of the membership were less aristocratic people brought in by the tsar, a bureaucratic element so to speak. The duma membership grew, to cite Diakonov's figures, from 30 under Boris Godunov to 59 under Alexis and 167 under
Theodore. Large size interfered with work in spite of the creation of various special committees. The boyar duma met very frequently, usually daily, and could be considered as continually in session. It dealt with virtually every kind of state business. Kliuchevsky and others have demonstrated convincingly that the boyar duma was essentially an advisory body and that it did not limit autocracy. Indeed service in the Muscovite boyar duma might well be regarded as one of the many obligations imposed by the state. But, on the other hand, the ever-present boyar duma formed in effect an integral part of the supreme authority of the land rather than merely a government department or agency. The celebrated Muscovite formula for state decisions, "the sovereign directed and the boyars assented," reminds one strongly of the English legal phrase "King in Council," while the boyar duma itself bears resemblance to royal councils in different European monarchies. The boyar duma assumed the directing authority in the absence of the tsar from Moscow or in case of an interregnum, such as that which followed the deposition of Basil Shuisky.
The nature of the zemskie sobory and their relationship to the Muscovite autocracy present even more complicated problems than does the boyar duma. Again, one should bear in mind that Muscovite political practice showed little evidence of the clear disjunctions of modern political theory and that it was based on custom, not written constitutions. The zemskie sobory, as we had occasion to see earlier, were essentially sporadic gatherings convened by the tsar when he wanted to discuss and decide a particularly important issue "with all the land." Fortunately for the students of the zemskie sobory, they had much in common with certain Western institutions and especially with the so-called Estates General. In fact, their chief characteristic, in the opinion of most scholars, consisted precisely in their inclusion of at least three estates: the clergy, the boyars, and the gentry servitors of the tsar. These were usually supplemented by the townspeople and, on at least one occasion, in 1613, by the peasants. The representation was by estates. Sometimes, as in the West, the estates would first meet separately, for instance, in the boyar duma or a Church council, and afterwards present their opinion to the entire zemskii sobor. The numbers of the participants in the different zemskie sobory varied from about two hundred to perhaps five hundred or more in 1613, with the service gentry invariably strongly in evidence.
The assembly of 1471, called by Ivan III before his campaign against Novgorod, has usually been listed as a "forerunner" of the zemskie sobory. The first full-fledged zemskie sobory occurred in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in 1549, 1566, 1575, and possibily 1580, and dealt with such important matters as the tsar's program of reforms and the Livonian War. Immediately after Ivan the Terrible's death, in 1584, another zemskii sobor confirmed his son Theodore as tsar, a step possibly suggested by the fact
that Ivan the Terrible had left no testament and no formal law of succession existed in Muscovite Russia. In 1598 a zemskii sobor offered the throne to Boris Godunov. The celebrated zemskii sobor of 1613, which we discussed earlier, elected Michael Romanov and his successors to rule Russia. As we know, at the time of Tsar Michael the zemskie sobory reached the peak of their activity: they met almost continually during the first decade of the reign; later, in 1632-34, 1636-37, and 1642, they convened to tackle the issue of special taxes to continue war against Poland and the problem of the Crimea, Azov, and relations with Turkey. In 1645 a zemskii sobor confirmed Alexis's accession to the throne, while during his reign one zemskii sobor dealt with the Ulozhenie of 1649, another in 1650 with the disturbances in Pskov, and still another in 1651-53 with the Ukrainian problem. Many historians add to the list of zemskie sobory the gathering or gatherings of 1681-82 connected with the abolition of the mestnichestvo and the accession of a new ruler. Unknown zemskie sobory may yet be uncovered; recently a Soviet historian claimed to have discovered one in 1575. But, in any case, the zemskie sobory belonged clearly to Muscovite Russia, and the period of their activity corresponded roughly to its chronological boundaries. They found no place in Peter the Great's reformed empire.
The key controversial issue in the literature on the zemskie sobory has been the scope of their authority and their exact position in the Muscovite order of things. Kliuchevsky and some other leading specialists have shown that the zemskie sobory aided and supported the policies of the tsars, but did not limit their power. The question of restricting the sovereign's authority never arose at their gatherings. Moreover, at least in the sixteenth century, the members were appointed by the government rather than elected. Although in the Time of Troubles, with the collapse of the central government and an interregnum, the elective principle appeared and a zemskii sobor emerged as the highest authority in the country, it proved only too eager to hand over full power to a new tsar. In the seventeenth as in the sixteenth century, membership in a zemskii sobor continued to represent obligation and service to the sovereign, rather than rights or privileges against the crown. At most the participants could state their grievances and petition for redress; the monarch retained full power of decision and action.
A different view of the situation has been emphasized by Tikhomirov and other Soviet historians, as well as by certain Western scholars such as Keep. They point out that the zemskie sobory, after all, dealt with most important matters, and often dealt with them decisively: the succession to the throne, war and peace, major financial measures. The most famous zemskii sobor, that of 1613 which led Russia out of the Time of Troubles and established the Romanov dynasty on the throne, deservedly received great attention. It should also be noted that during a large part of Michael's
reign no subsidy was levied or benevolence extorted without the consent of zemskie sobory; thus they had a hand on the purse strings, if they did not actually control state finances. Many edicts carried the characteristic sentence: "By the desire of the sovereign and all the land." Again, such epoch-making decisions as the extension of the tsar's jurisdiction to the Ukraine depended on the opinion of a zemskii sobor. Besides, particularly in the seventeenth century, with the elective principle persisting after the Time of Troubles and asserting itself in
the composition of several of the zemskie sobory, these assemblies acted by no means simply as rubber stamps for the tsars. For example, it has been argued that the Ulozhenie of 1649 represented the decision and initiative of a zemskii sobor that it forced on the government. In fact, the argument proceeds, the tsars and their advisers in the second half of the seventeenth century began to convene the zemskie sobory less and less frequently precisely because of their possible threat to the position of the monarch. The assertion of tsarist absolutism in Russia against the zemskie sobory corresponded to parallel developments in a number of other European countries, such as France, where the Estates General did not meet between 1614 and 1789, and England, where the seventeenth century witnessed a great struggle between the Stuarts and Parliament. But, whether the story of the zemskie sobory resembles its Western counterparts only faintly or rather closely, the net result in Russian social conditions consisted in arrested evolution at best and in the continuing sway of autocracy.