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Did Russia's Emancipated Serfs Really Pay Too Much for Too Little Land? Statistical Anomalies and Long-Tailed Distributions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Steven L. Hoch
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Abstract

According to the widely accepted view, under the terms of emancipation and land reform, Russian peasants received inadequate allotments of land for which they had to pay a disproportionately high purchase price. The data used to support the standard interpretation and the statistical methods underlying it are seriously flawed, however. Steven L. Hoch provides a detailed critique of these data and the methods of analysis, and he concludes that the price Russia's former serfs paid was fair, if not below the market price, for a viable subsistence plot. Overall, Hoch believes that the land reform settlement was a reasonable state policy producing a desirable economic outcome.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , Summer 2004 , pp. 247 - 274
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2004

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References

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13. Land sold by deeds of purchase excluded all transfers by inheritance, escheat, or public auction for nonpayment of state debts, or as a result of confiscation for criminal activity or disloyalty.

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35. See also Domar, “Were the Russian Serfs Overcharged,” 433.

36. Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, vol. 5, Ustav o poshlinakh, 1857 edition (St. Petersburg, 1857), 87 (article 399, emphasis added).

37. Ibid, (article 400).

38. Ibid, (article 402).

39. Svod dannykh o kuple-prodazhe zemel’ v 45 guberniiakh Evropeiskoi Rossii za tridtsatiletie 1863-1892gg. (St. Petersburg, 1903), 38-49, 74-85, and 112-33.

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41. Svod dannykh o kuple-prodazha zemel', and V. V. Sviatlovskii, Mobilizatsii zemel'noi sobstvennosti v Rossii (1861-1908g.) (St. Petersburg, 1911), viii.

42. Svod dannykh o kuple-prodazha zemel', pt. 1,8-14.

43. Various weights were tested, but the results did not substantially differ. To give but one example, for the black earth provinces, assuming that 60 percent of all peasant purchases on the open market between 1863 and 1872 involved fewer than 25 desiatinas, 30 percent between 25 and 500 desiatinas, and 10 percent more than 500 desiatinas (as opposed to the weights of 73, 27, and 0 used in table 8 above), the weighted average price is 39.67 rubles per desiatina. Weights of 50, 30, and 20 percent for the non-black earth provinces (as opposed to the weights of 60, 40, 0 used above) yield a weighted average of 30.78 rubles. Using similar weights for the western provinces (as opposed to 64, 36, and 0) produces a weighted average sale price of 29.74 rubles per desiatina. With these weights, the total market value of the non-black earth land allotted to the peasants would be 378 million rubles, 390 million rubles in the black earth provinces, and 302 million rubles in the western provinces for a total of 1,070 million rubles. This would still imply a very substantial undercharge, as the peasants paid a total of 867 million rubles under the terms of redemption. And given the average size in desiatinas of peasant purchases, these weights are quite inappropriate as they imply average peasant purchases (in area) considerably above observed levels.

44. Blum, End of the Old Order, 391.

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61. Kashchenko, Reforma 19 fevralia 1861 goda, 129.

62. Degtiarev, Kashchenko, and Raskin, Novgorodskaia derevnia, 134; Litvak, Russkaia derevnia, 150-51.

63. Pervoe izdanie materialov, 3:27, 34 (Report of the Economic Division, no. 15). The coefficients of variation for serfs on mixed dues, that is, those carrying both labor obligations and money payments, varied considerably, at times closer to pure quitrent peasants, at times closer to serfs only on corvée. In all likelihood, this depended on whether the quitrent was primarily a supplement to barshchina or whether the reverse held true.

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66. Kashchenko, Reforma 19 fevralia 1861 goda, 135-36, 145.

67. Kashchenko, Otmena krepostnogo prava, 113.

68. Blum, End of the Old Order, 383-400.

69. Hoch, Steven L., “The Serf Economy and the Social Order in Russia,” in Bush, M. L., ed., Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage (Longman, 1996).Google Scholar See Thorner, Kerblay, and Smith, eds., A. V. Chayanov on the Theory of Peasant Economy, 16-28, 224-41.