Is a black farmer a free farmer? Is the land tenure of black peasants a free peasant land ownership? There was a long debate in Soviet historiography.
Basically, it can be summarized into three opinions:
The first view is that the black peasant is not a free peasant in the full sense of the word, and that the land ownership system of the black peasant is a variant of the feudal land tenure system.
Soviet historians Grekov, AB, Cherepnin, A, Gorsky, Pokrovsky, C, M, Kashtanov and others held this opinion.
According to the opinion of Grekov and AB and Cherepnin, from Kievan Rus to the fifteenth century, most of the rural inhabitants of Russian village communes were not in a position of personal dependence, and continued to live in rural communes as commune free peasants.
However, over time, the feudal lord's encroachment on the land of the commune intensified, and the black soil of the commune gradually moved into the hands of the feudal lord, becoming the hereditary domain or monastic land of the feudal lord.
Although the commune organizations continued to exist in these usurped lands, they had become an institution under the rule of the feudal lords, carrying out the will of the feudal lords, becoming a tool for the feudal lords to exploit and oppress the members of the communes, and the formerly free commune peasants also became dependent peasants of the feudal lords.
The second opinion holds that in the Kurotsuchi commune, there are both forms of state ownership and commune ownership, headed by the Grand Duke.
That is to say, there are two masters of black soil: the feudal state and the peasantry, that is to say, in this black soil commune there are free peasants and there are peasants attached to the Grand Duke, and it is A. Shapiro who holds this opinion.
The third opinion is that the black peasant is a free peasant, and the land ownership system of the black peasant is the land ownership of the free peasant, and M, Smirnov, H, E, Nosov, A, and Kopanev hold this view.
According to Nosov, "the ancient rural communes (bepbs) were based on communal land ownership, ceased to be a social institution long before the Mongol invasion, and a part of the land was occupied by feudalism, "transformed into grand dukes"; Part of it has been preserved, but on top of it has been established the joint institution of the land of another non-peasant society (nonocTaahorocTCTAED).
From the thirteenth century onwards, "the real basis of the agriculture of the Black Earth Commune (and the Black Earth Commune itself) was to a greater extent not communal ownership but the private ownership of all occupied land by the Black Earth peasants"
By the 14th century, the Black Earth Commune retained only administrative authority over the location, and "the land was basically privately owned by the black peasants or used by others (meadows, forests, pastures)." ”
Mirnov made a similar argument, pointing out that "black soil" is the form of ownership of the Rus commune, the owner of the black soil is the peasant commune, and from the perspective of collective ownership of the commune, the black peasant is the owner of the black soil, not just the user.
Each of these three opinions has its own reasons and grounds.
Although different from each other, all acknowledge the existence of rural communes in the feudal era of Rus, and that this organization of rural communes, as well as the special power of the communes or the influence of such powers, existed until the late feudal period.
The author of the article believes that a third opinion is desirable.
In addition to the autonomy of the land and private economy, the black soil peasants also had a common black soil commune organization.
In this sense, they also live partly as a collective, they live in a large collective.
Below the commune are the villages, and below some large communes there are many smaller communes.
In the period of the formation of the centralized state, there was also a division of districts called "cra", cra stands for state power, is the division of the grand duke, in each district the grand duke sends its own administrative and judicial representatives to administer, according to the size of the unit and the boundary of the lot, the district and the commune are the same, the unit below the commune is called the village.
Usually the scope of a village is bounded by "where the ploughshares of that village can be plowed and where the axe and sickle can reach".
Generally, villages are not large, with only two households and no more than ten large households.
As a collective, the commune had a common line institution called mir.
This body was elected by the members of the commune, although in feudal society such elections were effectively controlled by wealthy peasant households.
The head of the commune has many names, "the head of the commune", the village head, the district head, the head of a hundred households, etc.
The most common name is the village chief, who is the representative of all the members of the commune, and the village chief and the mir (village assembly) jointly settle all the affairs of the commune, including the distribution of land, the use of dependent lands, the apportionment of taxes, the acceptance of new rural residents, etc., and have the power to try small criminal cases.
In these tasks, the sharing of the tax burden is the main responsibility of the village chief.
Secondly, it is also very important to determine the method of using dependent land, and the commune organization protects the right of peasants to use the land owned by the commune, and stipulates and arranges the methods and systems for the use of dependent land by commune members according to the actual situation.
In addition to the village head, the commune has clerks responsible for specific work, one of whom is called the storeman, who is responsible for managing the public treasury, and the storeman is also the main person in the daily production and life management of the commune.
He was in charge of the income and expenses of the commune, the specific sharing of taxes, the creation of lists, etc.
The rural commune is an autonomous unit.
Within the rural commune, everything was resolved by the commune itself.
Commune organizations are based on unwritten customary law in their day-to-day affairs and in minor judicial cases.
Customary law has been passed down and in the rural communes of Russia in feudal times, it still has a great "ability".
The village chief and Mir represent the entire commune in terms of foreign relations.
They can represent the commune before the notary and represent the commune in court trials, and in the sale and purchase of land by the members, the village community is often present, and the village chief is the main party.
For example, there is a document on the sale and purchase of land in the Knyarostrov commune in Novgorod, which records a land transaction.
Roughly speaking, the commune organization bought a piece of land for the Bogorodic Church from the son of the peasant Harrington Rodianov.
The "church price" was paid to Harriton by the village chief of the commune and Mrs. Knya Joströ, and it can be seen from this document that the seller of the land was the peasant and the buyer was the church, but neither party came forward when buying and selling the land, but the village chief of the commune negotiated with it, and then even the "church price" was handed over to the peasants through the commune and the village chief.
This example shows that when dealing with land with people outside the commune, the commune mil was in fact the plenipotentiary representative of the members of the commune, which to some extent also reflected the ownership of land by rural communes in the past.
In the case of land litigation, the commune mir also appeared as a representative of all the members of the commune.
To illustrate here two cases of land in the Preyask county in the fifteenth century: the first, in the proceedings of the Grand Duke and Duchess Marie Yaroslovna concerning the land of the commune of Bortene, ten people were present, seven of whom were representatives of the commune.
The second time, in a lawsuit between the peasants of the Mushutins commune and the Troy Sergiev Monastery, there were seventeen men, among them the administrators of the official court, and the "elders" of the commune.
The village chiefs of the commune and the elders of the commune attended the litigation meetings of the commune, which had a certain protective effect on the peasants of the commune.
To some extent, it has played a positive role in opposing the encroachment of peasant land by the owners.
Among the representatives present at the court, in addition to the village chief and other heads of the commune organization, there were often representatives of the old residents, who were old residents of the rural commune, who had close ties with the rural commune collective, who had participated directly in the construction of the commune and who had long borne various taxes for the commune.
They have extensive life experience and are familiar with land distribution methods within communes and the situation of individual land occupation.
Therefore, they were revered within the commune.
They often testified in court together with village chiefs, recalled and explained in the court of the feudal lord the situation of the land occupation of the commune before the thirties, forties, sixties and even eighties, and were often able to refute the fallacies of the feudal lords with good reason, and contributed to the defense of the interests of the members of the rural communes.
They were both witnesses of the life of the commune and the leaders of the peasants of the Black Earth Commune against the usurpation of land by the feudal lords.
Although the struggle in court was often unwinnable, and it was impossible to stop the feudal lord's encroachment on the peasantry, this struggle showed the fighting spirit of the free peasants in Russia.
The existence of village community organizations and their role in real life can be seen that some of the work of village community organizations still retains the rural customs of the past era, and there are also some democratic factors, such as the election of village chiefs and other clerks.
For quite some time, the commune was the protector of the black soil peasants.
The long-term existence of black soil and black soil peasants is inseparable from the existence and continuous functioning of rural communes.
After the establishment of the centralized state, the village community organization gradually transformed into the grassroots administrative organization of the feudal state, and lost its original role.
Although the name of the rural commune still remained, and the principle of rural elections was not abolished, it had become an administrative organization with the will of the feudal motto.
From the three aspects of land ownership and the nature of ownership, economic life and organization of the commune, the black soil peasants in Russia were actually free peasants, and they were protected by the rural commune for a considerable period of time.
The concrete manifestation is that they can freely dispose of their own land that has been passed down from generation to generation without any restrictions, and in economic life they have their own independent courtyard economy, production tools and dwellings; Although they were also exploited by the feudal lords, they only owed obligations to the feudal state and were not exploited by the feudal lords.
The obligation to pay taxes to the feudal state was not dependent on peasant symbols, because in feudal society it was impossible for any laborer except landlords, nobles and monks to be exempt from this burden.
In terms of exploitation, they resembled the yeomanry of the Eastern countries and China, and the black peasants in Russia were politically free.
This freedom was first and foremost manifested in their place in the commune.
As part of the commune, they had a say in the distribution of land and taxes in the commune, but as economic power changed, these rights were gradually monopolized by wealthy peasants.
Nevertheless, unlike private dependent peasants, they had no personal dependency and were not required to pay taxes related to personal dependency to feudal lords and landlords.
The free status of the black peasants can also be seen in their struggle against the feudal lords in court.
The village chief and the old inhabitants participated in the court as representatives of all the members of the commune, and they also appeared in the court as a party to the parties.
This fully demonstrates that the free status of the black peasant is legally recognized.
Compared with the status of serfs and dependent peasants in Western Europe, the status of the black soil peasants in Russia was fundamentally different.
In court, when the black soil peasants are fighting for their own rights, they do not appear as a subordinate.
In their view, the land they occupied was black land that paid only taxes to the state, so they were politically subordinate only to the power of the Grand Duke, and private lords had no right to occupy and usurp their lands and dependencies.
The so-called "grand duke" land here is in the eyes of the peasants as a hereditary property that always belongs to the peasants.