The Problems of Improving the Peasants' Economic Status in Ryazan Province in the Proceedings of the Special Conference on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry (1902-1903)

The article focuses on the problems of improving the economic status of peasants in Ryazan Province at the beginning of the 20th century. It is demonstrated that the local Committee on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry planned to solve them by modernizing the credit and financial, educational, and industrial spheres. The historiographic materials confirm that the main document for studying the functioning of the Special Conference on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry in Ryazan Province is Trudy Mestnykh Komitetov o Nuzhdakh Sel'skokhozyaystvennoy Promyshlennosti [Proceedings of Local Committees on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry]; the Committee functioned at the provincial and district levels. The analysis shows that lending to farmers became paramount in the fight against peasant poverty. The reform of the financial sphere was supposed to be financed by the government with the leading role of the zemstvo in this matter (Yegoryevsky Committee). The Ryazan Committee on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry linked the solution of key agricultural problems in the region with an increase in the educational level of the local peasants. The common points in the proposals of the local committees were that the county councils (zemstvos) financed educational projects, that general education was introduced, out-of-school activities were developed, and advanced farms were created. The regional political structure of society at the time was not homogeneous and consisted of conservative (Ranenburgsky Committee), radical (Dankovsky and Yegoryevsky Committees) and liberal (Ryazan Committee) groups. The local small-scale handicraft industry and seasonal work became an important financial aid for the peasants of Ryazan Province. The analysis of the materials of the central and local archives demonstrates that the features of the soil promoted the extension of handicraft industry and seasonal work to the northern infertile regions, but transport problems prevented the profitable sale of goods (Yegoryevsky, Ryazan, Sapozhkovsky Committees). The facts of the agrarian statistics show that the development of market relations in the region contributed to the outflow of peasants from the countryside to the city. The majority of Ryazan commons negatively assessed farmers' seasonal work, they registered changes in peasant psychology and a breakdown of patriarchal relations in the countryside (Dankovsky, Ranenburgsky, Sapozhkovsky Committees). This characterized the local community as conservative and did not contribute to the solution of the problem of seasonal work in the region. The author comes to the conclusion that financial assistance from the government and the county council's control became the key proposals of the Ryazan Committee on the Needs of the Agricultural Industry in improving the economic situation of peasants. The projects of the Ryazan Committee anticipated the reforms of the following decade.

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