Khodin S.N. Agrarian reforms in the context of the traditions of the Belarus village: comparative aspects (first quarter of the 20th century)

Abstract: This article analyses the agrarian policy in Belarus during the first quarter of the 20th century. It studies the mechanisms and forms of tradition transitioning through the economic behaviour and social psychology of the peasantry. The particularities of applying the Stolypin agrarian reform in Belarus are examined. The concept of “gromada” with respect to the peasant obschina is clarified, as well as its evolution. The author considers the changes in the Bolshevik agrarian reforms at the turn of the second and third decade of the 20th century, the reasons and premises for the transformation of the concept and content of the new economic policy. The features of the New Economic Policy in BSSR are defined in the process of the enlargement of its territory. The development of agrarian legislature at the stage of the formation of the Belarus state is analysed, as well as the main directions of its realisation. On the basis of a comparative study, this article examines the agrarian policy in the Belarus village, traditionally delineated at 1917, as well as the transformation of the traditional institutes of peasant self-management. The interdisciplinary approach has allowed to clarify the specifics of the economic behaviour and of the changes in public psychology of the Belarus peasantry. The author affirms that the basic element for the historically formed concept of justice in Berlarus peasantry was labour. It was precisely through this attitude to labour that the idea of property was defined, above all, land property, which for a Belarus was the greatest asset. The author formulates the hypothesis that the changes in the approach to property (the nationalisation of land) was perceived positively by the peasantry under the condition of being able to exploit land and independently manage the results of one’s labour. The taking into consideration of the historical traditions during the agrarian reforms in the middle of the 1920s was made possible as a result of the establishment of the institutes of BSSR state power. As an example of the more significant and considerate towards tradition measures of the agrarian policy of the Belarus authorities the author examines the establishment of the maximal and minimal norms of land allotment and the idea of the development of multifunctional cooperatives based on the form of individual villages.

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