Posessionist peasants and the history of Russian industry

The main working and creative potential of any country is people, citizens, its inhabitants. No government can raise the economy, withdraw the state to any significant boundaries, if there is not a proper number of workers and competent specialists. Those who stood at the helm of the government of the Russian state understood this well. Therefore, since the time of Yaroslav the Wise , the Russian princes, and then the sovereign emperors, truly grieving for the power, tried to form their subjects whenever possible. Particularly succeeded in this regard was Peter the Great.

Being not only a great reformer of Russia, planting on the Russian soil many customs and traditions of the West, Peter did much for the establishment and development of national industry. From the dense forests, the country made a giant leap into the world of science and technology. However, the same Peter, with all his democracy, became one of the most rigid feudal rulers. It was with him that this kind of serfdom appeared, like the registered peasants and the right of the right, although it was sometimes called a different name.

Under Peter, active development of the Urals and Siberia, other regions of Russia, which have economic significance, is being conducted. Buildings are being built, factories, the owners of which are people of non-nobility origin. These are merchants, representatives of other estates, who managed to get rich and began to invest their capital in the developing industry.

New land needs to be settled, in the enterprises under construction - to work. Naturally, all work was assigned to the people. However, the owners of enterprises could not buy peasants - it was a noble privilege. To ensure the developed lands and the expanding industry with working hands, Peter attributes hundreds of peasants to the already under construction and already operating enterprises.

Thus, the attributed peasants - the definition, according to which the so-called state, palace, economic peasants, instead of paying per capita taxes working in a private or public enterprise. Usually the peasants were attributed to the place of work without specifying a term, i.e. forever. It was a kind of another kind of serfdom. In form they were the property of the state. In fact, they were completely dependent on the manufacturers. Their fate was no better than the fate of serfs under the landlords.

Already in the first quarter of the 19th century, the acceding peasants were called indispensable, and then they were included in the composition of the so-called posessionist peasants. Such a name they received after the enterprises that accept money grants from the state, began to be called posessiyami.

Consequently, the settlement peasants are a people attached without land to work in manufactories. People were considered something of a factory equipment, inventory, they belonged to the enterprise, and not to the owner thereof. That is why the owners of the manufactories could not sell or exchange peasants working in the enterprise, just as landowners do.

The peasants acquired whole villages adjacent to the factories and factories. The same dependents were also considered runaway posessing peasants, if they mastered any skill, learned the factory business. Special state decrees stipulated all the subtleties of the relationship between factory slaves and their owners.

Yes, the out-of-the-way peasants tolerated bullying and violence, exploitation oppression no less than their village counterparts. Therefore, the craftsmen fled from the factory owners and manufacturers. Troops and armed insurrections broke out in places where settlement or settlement residents settled. For example, a lot of runaways from manufactories took part in the Pugachev movement.

Such a deprived status of the oppressed peasants occupied until the 1840th year. It was at this point that they began some indulgences. In the fortieth year a special law was adopted that allowed the workers to be freed from some dependence on the enterprise. Then, with the abolition of serfdom, the working people received freedom. However, until 1917, the settler peasants in some areas of the Russian Empire were in the same bondage.