160 years ago, in August 1853, in the Zadonsky district of the Voronezh province, a peasant uprising was suppressed, led by a resident of the village of Tovaro-Nikolskoye, Ivan Shipulin. 8 years before the Manifesto of Emperor Alexander II, which granted freedom to the peasants, residents of three villages of the Zadonsky district of the Voronezh province, Aleksandrovka, Tovaro-Nikolsky, and Chernigovka, rebelled, refusing to pay the landowners Vrevsky a huge arrears of 12 thousand rubles. In one of the points of their demands, the Transdon peasants proclaimed the abolition of serfdom. The riot, led by the peasant Ivan Shipulin, was brutally suppressed by soldiers sent from Voronezh: 11 peasants were killed, 20 were seriously wounded. The “Pugachevism” of the local spill was over.
In the middle of the 19th century, the relationship between the peasants, who were essentially slaves, and their owners, the landowners, developed in such a way that the solution to the issue of “emancipation” of the peasantry was very acute. Historians will later attribute the peasant unrest of the mid-19th century to the “second liberation stage of the revolutionary movement in Russia.” Despite the statements of the master of Russian cinema Nikita Mikhalkov, who calls serfdom “patriotism enshrined on paper,” “wisdom of the people,” “love for a “steady hand,” this love was sometimes expressed in blazing manorial estates.
The situation was aggravated in the 50s of the 19th century by the Crimean War, which depleted the economy of the Russian Empire. The government strengthened recruitment, increased taxes, and requisitioned horses and livestock for the army. Underwater, road and other duties have increased. The war separated more than 10 percent of adult men from peaceful labor and reduced the number of livestock by 13 percent. The peasant economy became even more ruined. In those years, N.I. Chernyshevsky wrote in the Sovremennik magazine about the extreme exhaustion of the peasants, based on data from a statistical survey conducted by officers of the General Staff. Then, for example, the main food of the peasants of the Ryazan province was rye bread and empty cabbage soup. “Eating porridge was already a sign of some contentment and became characteristic of more prosperous houses; meat food was extremely rare. Even potatoes were not enough. In the summer, the peasants also lacked bread. Arrears on state taxes in the last 20 years before the reform increased 7 times in this province. The situation of workers in other provinces was just as difficult,” wrote Chernyshevsky. The landowner tried in every possible way to increase income. He could do this, accordingly, at the expense of his serfs, at the expense of corvée, increased quitrent, fixed-time assignments, and in-kind duties. As a result, according to far from complete information, there were 192 mass peasant uprisings in 1857, 528 in 1858, and 938 in 1859. To suppress these mass unrest, which covered 16 provinces, troops were sent and clashes between soldiers and peasants took place, in which, according to official data, 36 people were killed and 57 wounded. One of the first peasant uprisings of the mid-19th century, which resulted in the abolition of serfdom, was the uprising of Ivan Shipulin in the Zadonsk region.
In the village of Tovaro-Nikolskoye, Lipetsk region, there is a monument - four vertical pipes connected at the top by a jumper on which three bells are attached.
This is a monument to the events of August 1853, when in Tovaro-Nikolskoye itself the roar of gunfire was heard, the shackles whistled and the shackles on the legs of the rebels rang as they went straight to Siberia. This monument was erected in 1988 by local historian and history teacher Mikhail Mendeleevich Vilensky. In the last years of Soviet power, the people's path to the monument was not yet overgrown; with the advent of capitalism, this place, for obvious reasons, became, to put it mildly, less popular. And the very history of the uprising of Ivan Shipulin began to be forgotten, since the actions of the peasants and their popularization according to modern laws can easily be interpreted as extremism.
It all started with the fact that the peasants of three villages - Aleksandrovka, Tovaro-Nikolsky, and Chernigovka, a total of 1909 souls, the landowner, Baroness Vrevskaya, demanded an arrears of 12 thousand rubles in silver, says the director of the local history museum of the village of Chastaya Dubrava, where the exhibition is located about the peasant uprising, Lyubov Gribanova. - For each “tax”, that is, horses, peasants had to pay 14 silver rubles a year. For comparison, at that time a cow cost 3 rubles. That is, simply put, in the form of a tax, the peasant was obliged to give away 4 cows during the year. As a result, I ran up a debt of 12 thousand in silver. Needless to say, the peasants were simply unable to pay this money? But the manager of the Krimeshnoy estate, who lived in Voronezh, and the local clerk Akimov, not without the knowledge of the landowner living in St. Petersburg, seeing that the peasants could not pay such a debt, came up with a work-off for them - to clear 400 dessiatines from the forest (1 dessiatine = 1. 45 hectares) of Vrevskaya land.
Such a huge amount of work was beyond the strength of the peasants and there was a murmur in the villages, which later grew into an uprising. It is believed that Ivan Shipulin led the peasant unrest in the Zadonsk district.
It is known that Ivan Shipulin was not a poor man,” continues Lyubov Gribanova. - He had his own apiary, but a problem constantly arose - where to place it, since the landowner Vrevskaya was all around. The manager of Krimeshnoy allowed him to place an apiary near the master's forest, but the clerk Akimov, a very cruel man, refused this. Then Ivan Shipulin went to Voronezh to complain about the clerk to the manager.
House of Ivan Shipulin’s family (photo from the mid-50s of the 20th century)
As a result, Shipulin was allowed to place his hives on the edge of the master's forest. But only for one season. Bortnik Ivan then set out on a long journey - to St. Petersburg to meet with the landowner Vrevskaya. And he carried out his plan. But, alas, Vrevskaya took the manager’s side, allowing Shipulin to put the logs on the edge of his forest for just one season.
The beekeeper returned home extremely dissatisfied. In addition, punishment awaited him in the village for unauthorized absence - Shipulin was publicly flogged. And the serfs of Vrevskaya rebelled. Riots and refusal to pay taxes began in the villages. Among other things, the peasants demanded the abolition of serfdom! The instigator of the uprising and the leader of the rebellious peasants was Ivan Shipulin.
A report from Count Vrevsky has survived to this day, who wrote about the serf peasants of his close relative: “The peasants who have more than 12 thousand rubles of arrears in silver hardly have the right to complain about the oppression of the owners, and finally, the desire of the peasants to be freed from all supervision and governed on their own choice cannot be allowed in any way...”
The manager of Krimeshnoy wrote a petition to the Voronezh governor, and 300 soldiers led by Colonel Duve were sent from Voronezh to Tovaro-Nikolskoye to suppress the riot. The peasants met them with axes and put them to flight, having previously disarmed them! Something unheard of since the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev happened; the peasants clashed with regular troops. And they gave them a worthy rebuff. This happened, according to some information, on August 4, 1853. The soldiers retreated in disgrace, settling in Zadonsk.
The Voronezh governor, Prince Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov, was forced to report what had happened to the emperor, and, having waited for the royal order, sent a regiment of 700 bayonets to Tovaro-Nikolskoye to suppress the uprising. But even in this case, the peasants entered into confrontation with the soldiers. Despite the fire already opened on them, the peasants, armed with pitchforks and axes, ran up to the square and grabbed the soldiers’ guns. Courage and determination did not help - the rebellion was brutally suppressed. 11 peasants were killed, 22 were seriously wounded. The rest went home, resigned to defeat. And their fate was unenviable. 
Photo from the bas-relief of the monument in Tovaro-Nikolsky
The trial of the remaining rebels was swift. It started on August 26th. 300 people were gathered from all three villages to the main square of Tovaro-Nikolsky. Those whose active participation in the uprising was more or less established were shackled and driven to Siberia, to hard labor for a period of 6 or 9 years. There were 39 such people. One active rebel was already at an advanced age, and he was released from hard labor. The rest were flogged with spitzrutens as a warning. Some received 100 blows, and some received 300. The drumbeat of hundreds of soldiers stationed in the village to keep order drowned out the screams of those being tortured.
Photo from the bas-relief of the monument in Tovaro-Nikolsky
The fate of Ivan Shipulin himself is unknown. It is also unknown where the dead were buried. But above the village, especially in windy weather, from the “bell tower” of the monument to those who fell for the liberation of the peasants, a memorial bell rings out.
Life was not easy for peasants during the time described by A.S. Pushkin in the story “Dubrovsky” - the time of serfdom. Very often the landowners treated them cruelly and unfairly.
It was especially difficult for the serfs of landowners like Troekurov. Troekurov's wealth and noble family gave him enormous power over people and the opportunity to satisfy any desires. For this spoiled and uneducated man, people were toys who had neither a soul nor a will of their own (and not only serfs). He kept the maids who were supposed to do needlework under lock and key, and forcibly married them off at his discretion. At the same time, the landowner's dogs lived better than people. Kirila Petrovich treated the peasants and servants “strictly and capriciously”; they were afraid of the master, but hoped for his protection in relations with their neighbors.
Troekurov’s neighbor, Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky, had a completely different relationship with the serfs. The peasants loved and respected their master, they sincerely worried about his illness and looked forward to the arrival of Andrei Gavrilovich’s son, young Vladimir Dubrovsky.
It so happened that a quarrel between former friends - Dubrovsky and Troekurov - led to the transfer of the former's property (along with the house and serfs) to Troekurov. Ultimately, Andrei Gavrilovich, having suffered greatly from the insult of his neighbor and the unfair court decision, dies.
The peasants of Dubrovsky are very attached to their owners and are determined not to allow themselves to be handed over to the power of the cruel Troekurov. The serfs are ready to defend their masters and, having learned about the court decision and the death of the old master, they rebel. Dubrovsky stood up in time for the clerks who came to explain the state of affairs after the transfer of property. The peasants had already gathered to tie up the police officer and deputy of the zemstvo court, Shabashkin, shouting: “Guys! away with them!” when the young master stopped them, explaining that by their actions the peasants could harm both themselves and him.
The clerks made a mistake by staying overnight in Dubrovsky’s house, because although the people were quiet, they did not forgive the injustice. When the young master was walking around the house at night, he met Arkhip with an ax, who at first explained that he “came... to see if everyone was at home,” but after that he honestly admitted his deepest desire: “if only everyone would be at once, that would be the end.” water.” Dubrovsky understands that the matter has gone too far, he himself is put in a hopeless situation, deprived of his estate and lost his father due to the tyranny of his neighbor, but he is also sure that “the clerks are not to blame.”
Dubrovsky decided to burn his house so that strangers would not get it, and ordered his nanny and the other people remaining in the house, except the clerks, to be taken out into the courtyard.
When the servants, on the master's orders, set the house on fire. Vladimir became worried about the clerks: it seemed to him that he had locked the door to their room, and they would not be able to get out of the fire. He asks Arkhip to go check if the door is open, with instructions to unlock it if it is closed. However, Arkhip has his own opinion on this matter. He blames the people who brought the evil news for what is happening, and firmly locks the door. Orderly ones are doomed to death. This act may characterize the blacksmith Arkhip as a cruel and ruthless person, but it is he who climbs onto the roof after a while, not afraid of fire, in order to save the cat, distraught with fear. It is he who reproaches the boys who are enjoying unexpected fun: “You are not afraid of God: God’s creation is dying, and you are foolishly rejoicing.”
The blacksmith Arkhip is a strong man, but he lacks the education to understand the depth and seriousness of the current situation.
Not all serfs had the determination and courage to complete the work they started. Only a few people disappeared from Kistenevka after the fire: the blacksmith Arkhip, the nanny Egorovna, the blacksmith Anton and the yard man Grigory. And, of course, Vladimir Dubrovsky, who wanted to restore justice and saw no other way out for himself.
In the surrounding area, instilling fear in the landowners, robbers appeared who robbed the landowners' houses and burned them. Dubrovsky became the leader of the robbers; he was “famous for his intelligence, courage and some kind of generosity.” The guilty peasants and serfs, tortured by the cruelty of their masters, fled into the forest and also joined the detachment of “people's avengers.”
Thus, Troekurov’s quarrel with old Dubrovsky served only as a match that managed to ignite the flame of popular discontent with the injustice and tyranny of the landowners, forcing the peasants to enter into an irreconcilable struggle with their oppressors
It took forty years after the abolition of serfdom for the peasants to again want land redistribution
Until 1917, the number of annual peasant uprisings was the best indicator of the political and social situation in the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, an average of 26 of them occurred annually. Single and collective performances fell under this category. This time was marked by complete conservation of the situation in the countryside - not a single attempt at a major peasant reform by the authorities was brought to completion.
After the defeat in the Crimean War, on the eve of the abolition of serfdom, peasants rebelled more and more often: in 1856 - 66 cases; in 1857 - 100; in 1858 - 378; in 1859 - 797. Later historians would call this the main sign of the revolutionary situation developing in Russia at that time. The abolition of serfdom became an act of self-preservation of imperial power.
After the Great Reforms of Alexander II, the number of performances began to decline. In the 1870s, at the peak of the Narodniks' activity, peasants rebelled with much less desire than in previous decades - an average of 36 cases per year. In the 1880s - the time of counter-reforms of Alexander III - an average of 73 annual uprisings was recorded, and in the 1890s the number of uprisings increased to 57 per year.
The relatively low level of social unrest among the peasants continued to convince the monarch and supporters of the autocracy that the peasantry, according to the theory of the official nationality, remained the support of the throne. At the same time, no one could offer options for the main, every year increasing problem of the post-reform village - peasant land shortage. In fact, the situation of the first half of the 19th century was repeated, when everyone understood the need to abolish serfdom, but no one wanted to take responsibility for this decision. The revolutionary situation in Russia again began to mature in the countryside.
And the whole of Russia is not enough
In 1861, about 23 million people were freed from serfdom in Russia, of which 22 million lived in the European part of the empire in the lands of what is now Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. This number did not include another 18 million state peasants who were finally freed five years later, in 1866. At the end of the 19th century, the peasantry comprised about 100 million people throughout the Russian Empire. In the forty years that have passed since the peasant reform, the country's rural population has more than doubled.
“The Liberation of the Peasants (Reading the Manifesto)” by Boris Kustodiev
The state was faced with the problem of peasant land shortage. If immediately after the reform there was an average of about 3.3 dessiatines of land per capita of the rural population, then by the beginning of the 20th century, due to population growth, one peasant was sometimes content with less than one dessiatine (1 dessiatine - 1.01 hectares), which inevitably led to a decrease in both the living standards of farmers and the pace of rural modernization.
The solution to the problem of land shortage was hampered not only by the indecisiveness of the authorities, but also by the inertia of peasant communities. They were governed by village assemblies, which elected the headman. The gatherings were in charge of the redistribution of land between community members and the payment of taxes to the state. The official history of this institute at the beginning of the 20th century was not even a hundred years old. The community was made the main instrument for regulating peasant life only during the time of Nicholas I, but in a short time it turned into one of the most important phenomena of Russian life. The community members, existing on the principle of mutual responsibility (shared responsibility), were not interested in the departure of their members, and the state did not contribute to communal reform.
At the same time, the peasants knew where to get land without leaving the community - from the landowners. Despite the general decline of the “nests of the nobility” in post-reform Russia, landownership continued to remain significant. Although the landowners owned only 13% of land suitable for agriculture, as well as a certain amount of forest and water lands.
Some of the landowners were able, after the 1860s, to turn their estate into an agricultural enterprise using the services of hired workers, while others took the path of least resistance and leased the land to peasants, who had to not only pay for the use of arable land, but also , for example, to pay for the right to pick mushrooms and berries in the landowner's forests. Some land-poor peasants were very happy with the possibility of renting land: those who were able to pay for it became richer and became kulaks. But there were also many for whom rent was not a salvation from their difficult financial situation.
The socio-economic stratification in the village grew. Journalism about the situation in the countryside at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries included previously non-existent terms that reflected this process: kulak, middle peasant and poor peasant. At the same time, the majority of peasants remained in agreement that landownership should be abolished, and the land should be owned by the one who cultivates it.
“Distributing bread to hungry children by priest Moderatov,” 1891-1892. Photo: Maxim Dmitriev
The state was in no hurry with the next round of peasant reform. Landowners, especially those who had become accustomed to the new capitalist realities, advocated the preservation and increase of large land ownership. The peasants grumbled. After several decades, the populists, Russian agrarian socialists, who relied on the peasantry as a revolutionary class, awakened.
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was time to paraphrase the first chief of gendarmes, Count Alexander Benckendorf, who at the end of the 1830s called serfdom a powder keg under the state. Now such a “barrel” was the lack of land inherited from serfdom. And the explosion was not long in coming.
“No bread! No land! If you don’t give it, we’ll take it anyway!”
The first year of the 20th century in Russia turned out to be a lean year. Its consequences did not lead to large-scale famine, but forced peasants in the European part of the empire to tighten their belts.
By the spring of 1902, the few products remaining with the peasants began to run out - the seeds stored for sowing were used. Many provinces faced a serious threat of mass starvation.
The situation was especially difficult in the Kharkov and Poltava provinces. After the arrival of the Russian Empire, the rich black earth lands became a place for the active development of landownership. After 1861, landowners here continued to retain most of the land while reducing peasant plots. In a situation of threat of famine and impoverishment of many families at the beginning of 1902, social tension in the village began to grow.
Unrest began to break out. At first the authorities did not pay close attention to them, considering them ordinary, having happened several times before. But this time they were wrong.
The first riots began in the village of Popovka, Konstantinograd (now Krasnograd) district, Poltava province, on March 9, old style. Local peasants attacked the farm (farm - RP) of the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Having driven out the guards, the attackers took out potatoes and hay, which were especially in short supply in the area.
A few weeks later, the estate of the landowner Rogovsky caught fire. Once again, the main target of the rebel peasants was the landowners' barns: food and feed were exported. By the end of March, new estates were burning every day in the Poltava province. Another conflict quickly emerged due to social stratification in the village - now, along with the landowners, kulaks were also attacked.
In early April, following the Poltava province, peasant revolts also engulfed the Kharkov province. On April 1 alone, there were 22 simultaneous attacks on landowners' farms. Witnesses of the uprising noticed with surprise that the peasants sought to immediately sow the captured land of the landowners, hoping that they would not be taken away later.
Ukrainian village, early 20th century. Photo: Culture Club / Getty Images / Fotobank.ru
The investigative materials describe the reasons that prompted the peasants to revolt as follows: “When the victim Fesenko turned to the crowd that had come to rob him, asking why they wanted to ruin him, the accused Zaitsev said: “You alone have 100 tithes, and we have one each.” tithe per family. Would you try to live on one tithe of land..."
One of the peasants complained to the investigator: “Let me tell you about our peasant, unhappy life. I have a father and six young children without a mother and I have to live on an estate of 3/4 of a dessiatine and 1/4 of a dessiatine of field land. We pay 12 rubles for grazing a cow, and for a tithe of bread we have to work three tithes for harvesting (that is, to work for the landowner. - RP). We can't live like this. We're in a loop. What do we do? We, men, have applied everywhere... we are not accepted anywhere, there is no help for us anywhere.”
Later, investigators noted that the uprising took place under the general slogan “No bread! No land! If you don’t give it, we’ll take it anyway!” In total, about 40 thousand peasants from 337 villages took part in it.
Dry statistics about the situation of peasants in the Poltava and Kharkov provinces say the following. In the Konstantinograd district of the Poltava province, for the 250 thousand peasants living there there were only 225 thousand acres of land. In the Valkovsky district of the Kharkov province, 100 thousand peasants were content with only 60 thousand dessiatines. A similar situation occurred in other districts affected by the uprising.
Only three weeks later in St. Petersburg they realized the full gravity of the situation. By this time, 105 noble estates and economies had been destroyed in the Poltava and Kharkov provinces. The troops began a retaliatory punitive operation. Nine infantry battalions and 10 Cossack hundreds were involved in it.
The police and army usually surrounded the rebel villages, after which the initial execution began in them, which amounted to flogging and confiscation of the loot. In the village of Kovalevka in the Poltava district, a crowd of gathered peasants was shot for their resistance: two were killed and seven were wounded. It should be noted that during the Poltava-Kharkov uprising, not a single landowner died at the hands of the peasants.
The investigation began. About a thousand people were brought to trial. In December, about 800 people were sentenced to prison terms of up to four and a half years, of whom 761 were pardoned. Instead of a prison term, Nicholas II imposed an obligation on the peasants to pay the affected landowners a total of 800 thousand rubles. Only 123 people were completely acquitted.
The Russian Revolution began in Ukraine
The Poltava-Kharkov uprising of Ukrainian peasants led to a whole chain of revolts. Only in 1902 did they break out in the Kyiv, Oryol, Chernigov, Kursk, Saratov, Penza, and Ryazan provinces. In these regions, they developed according to the scenario of the spring uprising: the rebellion and plunder of the landowners' economy in one village led to a chain reaction - noble estates caught fire in neighboring settlements. What was common in these regions was the presence of a high concentration of landownership, and therefore a high level of peasant land shortage.
Since the time of the Pugachev uprising (1773-1775), the imperial authorities have become unaccustomed to large-scale peasant riots. Throughout the 19th century, unrest affected only one locality - neighbors rarely decided to support. In 1902, a peasant uprising and further unrest began to occur according to a network, viral principle: unrest in one village spread to neighboring ones, gradually capturing new territories. In total, in 1901-1904 there were twice as many of them as in 1897-1900 - 577 versus 232 cases.
The new nature of peasant uprisings meant that profound social changes had occurred in the village. The peasants gradually began to recognize themselves as a class with common goals: first of all, this was the division of land on fair, as they understood them, conditions.
A policeman forbids a peasant to plow his landowner's land, 1906. Photo: Slava Katamidze Collection/Getty Images
Over the years since the abolition of serfdom, the Russian intelligentsia managed to develop an image of the peasant as a long-suffering and martyr who preferred to suffer rather than fight for his rights. The defeat of populism in the 1870s and 1880s was largely due to the peasants' insensitivity to political propaganda. But, as time has shown, during the time of Alexander II, the necessary conditions for revolutionary agitation had not yet developed in the village.
In the party of neo-populists, who at the beginning of the 20th century took the name Socialist-Revolutionaries (Socialist Revolutionaries), there was a long debate about the fact that the peasant is now of no interest for revolutionary agitation and it is necessary to focus on the working class and the intelligentsia. The events of the first years of the 20th century forced the Socialist Revolutionaries to return to their roots - to work among the peasants.
At the beginning of December 1904, the director of the Police Department, Alexei Lopukhin, wrote a memo to Emperor Nicholas II on the results of the investigation and analysis of the causes of the Poltava-Kharkov uprising. Lopukhin emphasized in the document that everything in the village is already ready for even bigger performances. “These riots, truly worthy of the name of rebellion, were so terrible that, assessing them now, almost three years later, one cannot help but shudder from the awareness, based on observation of them, of the unexpected simplicity with which a popular rebellion can break out in Russia and grow. If the moment comes when in a significant number of provinces of the empire life becomes unbearable for the peasants, and if in one of these provinces any external impetus for unrest appears, they can grow into such an unbridled movement, the waves of which will cover an area so vast that it is impossible to deal with them. will cope without bloody reprisals,” Lopukhin wrote to the Tsar.
Both the minute and the bloody massacre were not long in coming - a month later, “Bloody Resurrection” happened in St. Petersburg, which began the First Russian Revolution. During the years 1905-1907, while it lasted, 7,165 peasant uprisings took place in the Russian Empire.
Minister of Agriculture Alexei Ermolov later specifically emphasized in a letter to Nicholas II: “The slogan of the rebels was the idea that all the land belonged to the peasants.”
One of the most striking manifestations of the class struggle was the uprising of peasants: landowners and monasteries, palace and state. This form of class struggle in the countryside seems to immediately precede and support the peasant war. The highest form of class struggle of the peasantry, the peasant war itself, is to a large extent the result of the growth and merging of individual centers of peasant uprisings into a single all-Russian conflagration.
Let us dwell first of all on the performance of the palace and state peasants. Their position, especially the state ones, was somewhat better than that of the monastery peasants and, especially, the landowners. But nevertheless, the state peasants were under the yoke of the feudal state, and the palace peasants were dependent on the king, who in this case acted not only as the sovereign, but also as the master - the feudal lord.
Defending their interests from the arbitrariness of local authorities and royal administrators, from neighboring landowners, state and palace peasants in the 40s and 50s of the 18th century. they widely resorted to submitting petitions to various institutions and even to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna herself. But since the filing of petitions was considered by the authorities as disobedience, it is quite natural that the peasant electors - walkers, petitioners “are tyrannically beaten with whips and batogs and tortured in heavy chains under a strong guard, together with the villains. And because of that ruin and torment, no one dares to bash about it.”
Submitting petitions was difficult. Funds were needed to support the petitioners, to conduct business, etc. Energy, perseverance, and perseverance were needed in order to try to find justice for the servants who committed arbitrariness. Nevertheless, the state peasants stubbornly continued to fight. They especially fiercely resisted their transfer to the ranks of landowners and monastic peasants, since this inevitably entailed a significant deterioration in their position, an increase in all sorts of duties, increased exploitation in all forms and their final transformation into “baptized property.” The state and palace peasants had to wage a stubborn struggle with their neighboring landowners who sought to seize their lands and holdings.
The peculiarity of this form of resistance of the state and palace peasants was that they had to oppose their own brothers - the landowner peasants, who seized the lands and lands of the state peasants not only with the knowledge and permission of their bar, but most often on their initiative. So, for example, in 1753, the serfs of Count Sheremetev from the village of Rogovoy and the village of Lesunov, incited by their master, attacked their neighbors - the palace peasants and seized their property and lands.
It should be noted that the palace peasants extremely rarely turned to their managers for help, naturally believing that they would rather find a common language with the landowner than with them. But the state and palace peasants did not leave unanswered the attempts of the landowners to seize their land and lands. With the whole world, spontaneously, armed with axes and drekoly, they defended their lands and farms, often going on the offensive themselves and seizing the land of the landowners. The clerk of the Naryshkin princes complained about peasants from different villages of Kozlovsky and Tambov districts who were cutting down the landowner’s forest, mowing the grass, harvesting grain, taking away hay, and in general “wasting every land of his master.” Peasants often spoke out against their managers.
In 1732, a powerful movement of palace peasants developed in the Tambov region. They submitted a petition to the managers, complaining of bribery. The petitioners were captured. In response, 3 thousand peasants dispersed the military command, freed the petitioners and stubbornly resisted the sent troops.
For almost eight years, from 1733 to 1741, the movement of the palace peasants of the Khatun volost, “carrying out a rebellion,” continued. In 1743, having gathered in large numbers, the palace peasants of the Smolensk province dealt with the ruler. The palace peasants of the Klushinsky volost of the Mozhaisk district did not obey the authorities and refused to fulfill their duties in 1751.
In the late 40s and early 50s, secular gatherings of palace peasants, who gathered without the knowledge of the stewards, became significantly more frequent. The peasants expelled rulers they did not like, refused to send horses and carts, transport grain, or perform various jobs.
The increased resistance of the palace peasants prompted the government in 1758 to issue a decree according to which the managers of the palace estates could recruit “all sorts of revelers and opponents,” but it was difficult to eradicate “all sorts of revelers and opponents.” True, since the degree of exploitation, the form of dependence of the state and even palace peasants was different from that of the landowners and monasteries, they lived and breathed easier, and there were no those fetters in economic activity that characterize the position of the landowners and monastery peasants, to that extent the class struggle of state and of the palace peasants, despite the fact that it resulted in open disobedience, and even uprisings, it was still not as aggravated and did not take on such a scale as it did on the lands of landowners and monasteries.
The movement of state peasants was directly related to the unrest of the peasants. The Odnodvortsy, descendants of the “old services of service people” in the 18th century, found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Once upon a time they really differed from the peasants, because they carried out military service on the outskirts of the Russian state in the immediate vicinity of the “Wild Field”. In the 18th century they found themselves in the distant rear, and their significance as the border guards of the Russian state went into the realm of legend. They were still not considered serfs and, moreover, they could have serfs themselves and carried out military service in the land militia, but the extension of the capitation tax, additional fees and countless duties in favor of the state to them actually turned them into state peasants exploited by the feudal state. To this should be added the chronic and continuously growing shortage of land, characteristic of the overwhelming majority of single-yard owners who did not know the communal redistribution of land, and the decisive and energetic attack of landowners on single-yard lands. Among the odnodvortsy, especially Kursk and Voronezh, only a few had serfs and rented out land. Much more numerous were the groups of single-household dwellers who did not have “arable land and no shelters.” These odnodvortsy were forced to go for rent to neighboring landowners or their own fellow villagers - odnodvortsy, and their families lived “in the name of Christ” and wandered “between the yards.”
The most dangerous enemy of the odnodvortsy was the landowner. Despite the prohibition, landowners bought land from impoverished members of the same estate, and most often the nobles simply seized their lands and lands by force. Attempts to appeal to justice remained unsuccessful, forcing the members of the same palace to become bitterly convinced every time of the truth of the Russian proverb: “Don’t fight the strong, don’t sue the rich.” Therefore, many odnodvortsy, “unable to tolerate the attacks on them from the bosses and landowners who were in charge,” fled for their lives. But it was not always the case that the odnolords resolved their disputes with rich landowners and all-powerful authorities by fleeing. Many took up arms. For four years (from 1761 to 1764), the odnodvortsy village of Vishnevoye, Kozlovsky district, Voronezh province, attacked the village of Redkina, the titular councilor Andrei Redkin, who settled on lands and lands that actually belonged to the Vishnevoye odnodvortsy.
In 1760, there was a riot among the peasants and Ukrainian peasant settlers in the Pavlovsk district of the Voronezh province. The rebels refused to “be subject to the landowners” and stubbornly resisted the military teams sent against them.
Two years later, an uprising of members of the same palace broke out in Kozlovsky district, led by Trofim Klishin. The Kozlov voivodeship office reported that “from various villages, the same-lords, having gathered in large numbers without permission,” destroyed noble estates and farmsteads, destroyed buildings, trampled grain in the fields and cut down protected groves.
Entering into an acute class conflict with the feudal lords, secular and spiritual, the former state and palace peasants assigned to the plant or given to the landowner, the main demand, as a rule, was to return them to their original position as state, state, black sowing or palace peasants. One might think that such a return to the status quo was in keeping with their social aspirations. But it would be wrong to believe that returning to the state of state peasants who did not know the “master”, “master”, whoever he was, whatever he was called, whether he wore a powdered wig or a monastic skuf on his head, was really the limit of the aspirations of the rebellious peasantry, having reached which the peasants, once again becoming the property of the “Tsar-Father” and obligated to perform duties only in favor of the state, would calm down and stop “mischief”, “nastiness”, “robberies” and “riots”. It was not just about returning to bygone times, which always seemed better than today. The past times were only the least evil.
If the position of the black-growing peasants and categories of the rural population close to them, such as single-lords, had really been so tempting, then there would not have been that fierce struggle both against the feudal state and against the secular and spiritual feudal lords advancing on them, examples of which we have given higher.
The uprisings of landowners and monastic peasants deserve especially close attention from researchers interested in the class struggle of the peasantry.
The class struggle of the landowner peasants, which took the form of open disobedience and rebellion, never ceased in the country. It then intensified, then weakened, then again took on an increasingly threatening character for the landowners and authorities. Over time, and especially in the 60s, the unrest of the peasants took on an increasingly chronic, protracted nature, which forced, in particular, Catherine II, upon ascending the throne, to start counting the number of peasants who were in “rebellion” and “disobedience.”
During the 30–50s of the 18th century, 37 uprisings of landowner peasants took place in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kazan, Novgorod and Arkhangelsk provinces, and in the 60s, only eight years (from 1762 to 1769) broke out 73 uprisings. Approximately half of all peasant uprisings in the 30–50s were due to the difficult economic situation of the peasants and the complete impossibility of fulfilling excessive duties in favor of the landowner and the state. The peasants refused to obey the landowners and clerks, dealt with them, seized the landowners' crops and property, divided the livestock and, as a rule, resisted the military teams sent to pacify them. The other half of the peasant uprisings of the 30s–50s were due to the same reasons, but the participants in these unrest resolutely demanded that they be transferred to the category of either palace peasants or, more often, to the category of state peasants. In most cases, they have been like that in the past.
The uprising, as a rule, broke out during the period when the estate was being transferred from one owner to another. This reflected the peasants’ idea that they were “strong” only for a given landowner, a given landowner family. Often uprisings took place in villages and villages with a sharp stratification of property among the peasantry, with highly developed commodity-money relations. These uprisings were more persistent, protracted, prolonged and were sometimes accompanied by well-organized armed resistance of the peasants.
The same phenomena are characteristic of the uprisings of landowner peasants in the 60s and early 70s, but it should be noted the general trend of the unrest: they became more and more persistent, fierce and long-lasting.
Beginning in 1729, the quitrent peasants of Naryshkin’s estate in Shatsky district were worried. In a petition addressed to Emperor Peter II, the peasants complained about the increase in rent, about the growth of corvee, about bullying and robbery by the clerk Klim, as a result of which most of the peasants “came into great complete poverty.” Attempts by the peasants to appeal to Naryshkin himself with a complaint were unsuccessful, and now, turning to the emperor, the peasants asked to be considered as palace servants from now on, “so as not to die of starvation.” Subjected to brutal execution, the peasants did not stop resisting. The most active part went into the forests, creating a “robber party”, which in the spring of 1735 burned Naryshkin’s house and killed the clerk in the village of Konobeev, destroyed the house of the landowner Chaadaev and the house of the mayor in Elatma, and in the Murom district they destroyed a tavern and merchant shops.
The struggle of the landowner peasants to “depart from the landowners” continued in the 30s, but it especially intensified starting from the 40s. For four years, the peasants of the village of Semenovskaya, Dmitrov district, refused to obey the new owner, landowner Dokhtorov, declaring that “they, de Dokhtorov, will not listen to him in the future.” Armed with clubs, axes, stakes and spears, the peasants expelled the Detective Order teams from the village several times, and only a large military detachment managed to suppress the uprising.
No less stubborn was the struggle of the peasants of Count Bestuzhev’s estate in the Pskov district, who were confiscated in 1743 and assigned to the empress. Considering themselves from that moment on to be state-owned, the peasants refused to pay their debt to the count. An uprising broke out. A crowd of two thousand armed peasants, led by the manager Trofimov, elected by the peasants, stubbornly resisted the military command. A real battle broke out. The peasants lost 55 people in killed alone. The arrested Trofimov left prison twice and managed to submit a petition to Elizaveta Petrovna. Only imprisonment in distant Rogerwick forced him to give up the fight. 112 peasants were whipped as "breeders", and 311 people were punished with whips. It should be noted that the “subsistence peasants” not only did not take part in this uprising, but also provided assistance to the military team.
The peasants of the villages of Ulema and Astrakhan in the Kazan district stubbornly resisted and refused to submit to the landowner Narmonitsky. This movement lasted two years (1754–1755). The peasants did not want to recognize him as their master, since they considered themselves “escheated”, because their landowners, for whom they were registered according to the audit, had died. They considered Narmonitsky simply a usurper. Armed, the peasants divided all the supplies and belongings taken from barns, cellars and the landowner's house, and prepared to defend their villages. They sent ten walkers to Moscow with petitions expressing their request “not to follow the landowner.” With great difficulty the authorities suppressed this unrest.
In the 60s of the XVIII century. the number of unrest among landowner peasants increases significantly. The state and palace peasants, who became landowners and private owners, immediately experienced all the hardships associated with the change of owners, and quickly and decisively responded to these changes.
In 1765, an uprising of peasants in the village of Vasilyevskoye in the Tambov district broke out. Vasilyevskoye was once a palace village, and the peasants repeatedly “beat” the Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II, asking to return them to the jurisdiction of the palace department and get rid of the landowner. Their requests only ended in reprisals. Driven to despair, the peasants of the village of Vasilyevskoye “and their villages” in 1765 “started a rebellion” against the landowner Frolov-Bagreev and “with the help of palace and volost peasants, they plundered his house.” Military operations began in Vasilyevskoye. When the military team nevertheless “overcame” the poorly armed peasants, some of them went into the forest, while the other hid for a long time with their neighbors - the palace peasants.
In 1766, in the Voronezh province, the peasants of the settlements of Petrovskaya, Vorontsovka, Aleksandrovka, Mikhailovka, Fasanovka and Kovalskaya, which belonged to different owners, “refused to obey their owners and began to rebel.” The “disobedient peasants” were Ukrainians (“Cherkasy”), descendants of active participants in the liberation war in Ukraine of 1648–1654 who moved here. The unrest of the “Little Russians” continued for a long time, spreading from Voronezh to Belgorod province. The rebel “Cherkassy” declared that they would not listen and obey the landowners, they would not leave their lands, they considered themselves obligated only to the sovereign and the state, and “to the current owners, and to others to whom they do not want to be subject.”
What did the rebel peasants - the “Little Russians” - strive for and demand? From the reports of the commanders of military units it follows that they “wish to be state, volost, or assigned to the service.” Descendants of Ukrainian Cossacks who settled in Russia in “settlements” where they knew neither “obedience” nor masters, the “Cherkasy” of the Voronezh and Belgorod provinces sought to become again, like their ancestors, sovereign people, subjects of the state. Either a state peasant or a serving military man - this is the demand with which the “Cherkassy” turned to the authorities, considering their serfdom and their duties in relation to their masters to be a great injustice. The “Little Russians” were offered either to give a subscription - to obey their masters, or to go anywhere. But the peasants did not want to give such a subscription, nor to leave their native lands. The Cherkasy movement took on a threatening character for landowners and authorities. Crowds of rebels numbering up to 2-3 thousand people were armed with guns, spears, reeds, and axes. The military teams had difficulty suppressing their performance.
In 1762, the peasants of the villages of Nikolskoye and Arkhangelsk with villages in the Volokolamsk district refused to “obey” the landowner Sheremetev. At the gatherings, having gathered “in large numbers,” “hundreds to five,” armed with clubs, spears, and axes, the peasants decided to disobey the master. They shouted: “We are not Sheremetev, but the sovereign.” The rebels seized bread from the landowner's granaries, divided it, and began to cut down the protected grove. They declared to the armed detachment of servants sent by the master: “Tell your master that when they don’t leave a hair on us, then we will be obedient.”
It is neither possible nor necessary to list all the uprisings of the landowner peasants, but it is worth noting some characteristic features of the peasant uprisings of the 60s.
The peasants not only divide the property of the landowners, but also take away and destroy their “letters,” i.e., documents about their serfdom, as happened, for example, during the uprising of the peasants of the Staritsa estate of the landowner Novosiltsev.
The rebellious peasants seek to enlist the support of their neighbors. In 1762, the peasants of the Poshekhon estate of the landowners Polyakov and Chertovitsyn, “inviting various peasant estates to help them,” threatened to expand the uprising. The desire of the rebel peasants to go beyond the boundaries of patrimonial isolation, to find help and support in a neighboring or even distant village and, in turn, to help him is combined with a lively and active response to the events that took place in other fiefs. The peasants heard and knew that there was unrest everywhere, that “disobedience” and “disobedience” were being caused by their class brothers throughout vast Russia, and, trying to keep up with them, prompted by the example of others who had risen to fight for land and freedom, they themselves began an uprising . So, for example, in June 1762, the peasants and servants of the Staritsa estate of the landowner Zmeev from the village of Balkova with the villages burst into his yard and house shouting that “from now on... they don’t want to be subject to rule.” At the same time, the peasants referred to the fact that they were far from the first to refuse obedience to the landowners. “Many of our brothers have already abandoned their masters altogether, and have gone to St. Petersburg, so as not to continue to be under the landowners, but to live according to their own will, to beat their foreheads.” And so the peasants of Zmeev sought to keep up with others, to catch up and achieve an order in which they could live “at their own free will.”
Some uprisings of landowner peasants were exceptionally strong. The peasants of the Tatishchev and Khlopov estates in the Tver and Klin districts, numbering up to 1,500 people, led by the retired clerk Ivan Sobakin, captured 64 soldiers in a fierce battle, although they themselves lost three people killed and several people were wounded. An entire cuirassier regiment had to be sent to suppress the uprising.
The speech of the peasants Tatishchev and Khlopov found a response among the peasants of neighboring landowners, in particular the peasants of the Volokolamsk and Tver estates of Prince Meshchersky. They refused to obey the master and sent petitioners to St. Petersburg with a complaint. Particularly active were the “petitioner” Mikhail Pakhomov and the compiler of the petition, a literate yard man, Moisei Rodionov.
In the spring of 1765, an uprising of peasants in the village of Ivanovskoye in the Penza district broke out. The reason for the uprising was the sale of the village by Prince Odoevsky to the collegiate secretary Shevyrev. The rebel peasants had “all kinds of fiery and icy weapons”: guns, scythes, clubs, bows and arrows, flails, stakes, axes, spears and hooks designed for pulling riders from the saddle. A military team of soldiers and Cossacks, which arrived to pacify the rebels and even had two cannons, found itself in a difficult situation. The team commander, Lieutenant Dmitriev, encountered passive resistance from the peasants of all the surrounding villages and hamlets - Karabulak, Golitsyno, Novakovka, Matyushkino, Alekseevka, etc.: the neighbors hid the property and families of the rebels, did not sell the military team “not only food supplies, but also bread,” trying to “starve the regular and irregular team for one village of Ivanovskoye,” they did not provide witnesses. The peasants of these villages, forming “horse parties”, rode around Ivanovsky. Lieutenant Dmitriev was also afraid of the “robber party” operating near the village of Golitsyno. Fearing an open battle, Dmitriev persuaded the peasants to listen to the new master. But they didn’t want to hear about it, they sent a walker to Moscow to the old master Odoevsky, and they themselves were actively preparing for defense: they made, collected and bought weapons, stocked up on gunpowder, fortified the village, “all the streets were blocked and considerable fortresses were established at night.” . The rebel peasants were divided into three groups. The most numerous and well-armed detachment was preparing to take a frontal attack and fight in the village itself. The second detachment hid in the forest and was supposed to attack the military team from the rear, and the third stood at the dam. The uprising was led by elected officials Andrei Ternikov, Pyotr Gromov and others. Pyotr Gromov was helped by a retired soldier, Sidor Suslov. The rebels “all agreed to die together and not give up.” Only after receiving reinforcements did the military team launch an attack on Ivanovskoye. On May 7 and 8, a fierce battle broke out. When artillery was used against the rebels, the peasants set the village on fire and went with their families into the forest, where they had driven their cattle and property away before. Only by the fall did the authorities manage to deal with the “disobedient” peasants.
The uprising in the village of Ivanovskoye is distinguished by its tenacity, courage, and certain elements of organization (an attempt to give harmony to the army of the rebellious village, establishing contacts with neighbors, preliminary evacuation of property, strengthening the village, collecting and manufacturing weapons).
The uprising of the peasants of the village of Argamakovo with villages in the Verkhnelomovsky district of the Voronezh province, which occurred in 1768, was different in nature. The peasants refused to obey their master Shepelev. On August 16, two squadrons of hussars entered the village of Argamakovo. About a thousand peasants, armed with spears, clubs, poles, flails and axes, greeted the command “furiously.” They shouted that they were ready “even to die, but they will not go under Shepelev.” When the hussars began to surround the peasants, they themselves rushed to the attack. Ignoring the losses, the peasants rushed towards the soldiers. The hussars opened fire and began to set fire to houses. The peasants retreated into the forest, but the hussars immediately rushed there. The “ringleaders” were captured.
The uprising in Argamakovo is a strong but fleeting outbreak of anger among the landowner peasants.
In general, as a rule, all peasant uprisings on landowners' lands did not last long, and only individual uprisings lasted quite a long time. So, for example, for more than three years (1756–1759) the peasants of the village of Nikolskoye, Livensky district, caused “all sorts of nasty things” and showed stubborn resistance to their master Smirnov. The peasants of the village of Pavlovsky, Moscow district, and the 19 villages that “pulled” towards it were in “disobedience” for four years. The peasants “registered to the sovereign” refused to pay the quitrent. They sent walkers to St. Petersburg, filed petitions, and went in droves to Moscow to ask for “merciful justice.” They were “put on the right”, flogged, imprisoned, put in stocks, military teams were sent to the villages, arrears were severely collected, but the tenacity, courage, perseverance and fortitude of the peasants resulted in the cessation of the collection of arrears and the withdrawal of the military team from the village of Pavlovskoye and the villages.
It is characteristic that not only “average” and “meager” peasants often participate in uprisings, but also “subsistence”, “best”, “first-class”, “capitalist” peasants. This was the case, for example, in 1765–1766. in the village of Znamensky, Simbirsk patrimony of the Sheremetevs, when in the unrest of the peasants, on the one hand, the “subsistence” peasants Anika and Kuzma Zaitsev, Matvey Ilyin, Vakurov, Kolodeznev, who rented land from their fellow villagers, hired farm laborers, traded, etc., took an active part in the unrest. and on the other, former barge hauler F. Bulygin, farm laborer F. Kozel, “meager” peasant Larion Vekhov, who at one time was listed as “on the run,” and others.
During the unrest of the peasants in the villages of Borisoglebsk and Arkhangelsk, Penza estate of the Kurakins in 1771–1772. Among the rebels there were both “subsistence” and “meager” peasants. From this it follows that most often peasants, regardless of “wealth” and “subsistence”, fought against their boyars, against serfdom.
“God forbid we see a Russian rebellion - senseless and merciless. Those who are plotting impossible revolutions among us are either young and do not know our people, or they are hard-hearted people, for whom someone else’s head is half a piece, and their own neck is a penny,” wrote A. S. Pushkin. Over its thousand-year history, Russia has seen dozens of riots. We present the main ones.
Salt riot. 1648
Causes
The policy of the government of boyar Boris Morozov, brother-in-law of Tsar Alexei Romanov, included the introduction of taxes on the most necessary goods, including salt - without it it was then impossible to store food; corruption and arbitrariness of officials.
Form
An unsuccessful attempt to send a delegation to the Tsar on June 11, 1648, which was dispersed by the Streltsy. The next day, the unrest grew into a riot, and “great turmoil erupted” in Moscow. A significant part of the archers went over to the side of the townspeople.
Suppression
By giving the archers double pay, the government split the ranks of its opponents and was able to carry out widespread repressions against the leaders and most active participants in the uprising, many of whom were executed on July 3.
Result
The rebels set fire to the White City and Kitay-Gorod, and destroyed the courts of the most hated boyars, okolnichy, clerks and merchants. The crowd dealt with the head of the Zemsky Prikaz, Leonty Pleshcheev, the Duma clerk Nazariy Chisty, who came up with the salt tax. Morozov was removed from power and sent into exile to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (later returned), the okolnichy Pyotr Trakhaniotov was executed. The unrest continued until February 1649. The Tsar made concessions to the rebels: the collection of arrears was canceled and the Zemsky Sobor was convened to adopt a new Council Code.
Copper riot. 1662
Causes
Depreciation of copper coins compared to silver coins; the rise of counterfeiting, general hatred of some members of the elite (much of the same ones who were accused of abuses during the salt riot).
Form
The crowd destroyed the house of the merchant (“guest”) Shorin, who was collecting the “fifth of the money” throughout the state. Several thousand people went to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye, surrounded the Tsar, held him by the buttons, and when he gave his word to investigate the matter, one of the crowd struck hands with the Tsar of All Rus'. The next crowd was aggressive and demanded to hand over the “traitors for execution.”
Suppression
The archers and soldiers, on the orders of the king, attacked the crowd that threatened him, drove it into the river and partially killed it, partially captured it.
Result
Hundreds of people died, 150 of those captured were hanged, some were drowned in the river, the rest were whipped, tortured, “on investigation for guilt, they cut off their arms and legs and fingers,” they were branded and sent to the outskirts of the Moscow state for eternal settlement . In 1663, according to the tsar's decree of the copper industry, the yards in Novgorod and Pskov were closed, and the minting of silver coins was resumed in Moscow.
Streltsy riot. 1698
Causes
The hardships of serving in border cities, grueling campaigns and oppression by colonels - as a result, the desertion of the archers and their joint rebellion with the townspeople of Moscow.
Form
The Streltsy removed their commanders, elected 4 elected officials in each regiment and headed towards Moscow.
Suppression
Result
On June 22 and 28, by order of Shein, 56 “fugitives” of the riot were hanged, and on July 2, another 74 “fugitives” to Moscow were hanged. 140 people were whipped and exiled, 1965 people were sent to cities and monasteries. Peter I, who urgently returned from abroad on August 25, 1698, headed a new investigation (the “great search”). In total, about 2,000 archers were executed, 601 (mostly minors) were whipped, branded and exiled. Peter I personally cut off the heads of five archers. The yard positions of the archers in Moscow were distributed, the buildings were sold. The investigation and executions continued until 1707. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century, 16 streltsy regiments that did not participate in the uprising were disbanded, and the streltsy with their families were expelled from Moscow to other cities and enrolled in the townspeople.
Plague riot. 1771
Causes
During the plague epidemic of 1771, Moscow Archbishop Ambrose tried to prevent worshipers and pilgrims from gathering at the miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Bogolyubskaya at the Varvarsky Gate of Kitay-Gorod. He ordered the offering box to be sealed and the icon itself to be removed. This caused an explosion of indignation.
Form
At the sound of the alarm bell, a crowd of rebels destroyed the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, the next day took the Donskoy Monastery by storm, killed Archbishop Ambrose, who was hiding there, and began to destroy quarantine outposts and houses of the nobility.
Suppression
Suppressed by troops after three days of fighting.
Result
More than 300 participants were put on trial, 4 people were hanged, 173 were whipped and sent to hard labor. The "tongue" of the Spassky Alarm Bell (on the Alarm Tower) was removed by the authorities to prevent further demonstrations. The government was forced to take measures to combat the plague.
Bloody Sunday. 1905
Causes
A lost strike that began on January 3, 1905 at the Putilov plant and spread to all factories in St. Petersburg.
Form
A procession of St. Petersburg workers to the Winter Palace in order to present Tsar Nicholas II with a collective petition about workers’ needs, which included economic and political demands. The initiator was the ambitious priest Georgy Gapon.
Suppression
The brutal dispersal of work columns by soldiers and Cossacks, during which firearms were used against the demonstrators.
Result
According to official figures, 130 people were killed and 299 were injured (including several police officers and soldiers). However, much larger numbers were mentioned (up to several thousand people). The Emperor and Empress allocated 50 thousand rubles from their own funds to provide assistance to family members of those “killed and wounded during the riots on January 9th in St. Petersburg.” However, after Bloody Sunday, strikes intensified, both the liberal opposition and revolutionary organizations became more active - and the First Russian Revolution began.
Kronstadt rebellion. 1921
Causes
In response to strikes and rallies of workers with political and economic demands in February 1921, the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b) introduced martial law in the city, arresting labor activists.
Form
On March 1, 1921, a 15,000-strong rally took place on Anchor Square in Kronstadt under the slogans “Power to the Soviets, not parties!” Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin arrived at the meeting; he tried to calm those gathered, but the sailors disrupted his speech. After this, he left the fortress unhindered, but then the commissar of the fleet Kuzmin and the chairman of the Kronstadt Council Vasiliev were captured and thrown into prison, and an open rebellion began. On March 1, 1921, the “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” (PRK) was created in the fortress.
Suppression
The rebels found themselves “outside the law,” no negotiations were held with them, and repressions followed against the relatives of the leaders of the uprising. On March 2, Petrograd and the Petrograd province were declared under a state of siege. After artillery shelling and fierce fighting, Kronstadt was taken by storm.
Result
According to Soviet sources, the attackers lost 527 people killed and 3,285 wounded (real losses could be much higher). During the assault, 1 thousand rebels were killed, over 2 thousand were “wounded and captured with weapons in their hands,” more than 2 thousand surrendered and about 8 thousand went to Finland. 2,103 people were sentenced to capital punishment, and 6,459 people were sentenced to various terms of punishment. In the spring of 1922, the mass eviction of Kronstadt residents from the island began.
Novocherkassk execution. 1962
Causes
Supply interruptions due to strategic shortcomings of the USSR government, rising food prices and declining wages, incompetent behavior of management (plant director Kurochkin told the strikers: “There is not enough money for meat - eat liver pies”).
Form
Strike of workers of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant and other townspeople on June 1-2, 1962 in Novocherkassk (Rostov region). It turned into mass riots.
Suppression
Troops are involved, including a tank unit. Fire was opened on the crowd.
Result
A total of 45 people went to city hospitals with gunshot wounds, although there were many more victims. 24 people died, two more people were killed on the evening of June 2 under unclear circumstances (according to official data). The authorities made some concessions, but there were mass arrests and trials. 7 “ringleaders” were shot, the remaining 105 received prison sentences of 10 to 15 years in a maximum security colony.