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Translate relative words and define their parts of speech
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rest, to rest, restless, restlessness
to own, owner, ownership
to product, product, production, producer, productive, productivity
land, to land, landlord
new, to renew, renewed
Translate the text
Russian reform
a) The first major Russian reform was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. At the time of emancipation about 45 percent of the land was private property and the remainder was held as allotment land, cultivated in units averaging 9.5 acres (3.8 hectares) by the peasant serfs against rent in kind and labour, payable to feudal lords. In contrast, fewer than 1,000 noble families owned about 175,000,000 acres (70,000,000 hectares) and received rent there from. Conflict between such extremes of poverty and wealth caused restlessness among the peasants and rendered reform inevitable.
The Emancipation Act of 1861 abolished serfdom and distributed allotment land among the peasants. The homestead became hereditary property of the individual, but the field land was vested in the village mir as a whole. The peasant paid redemption through the village authority, while the landlord received state bonds as compensation equal to 75 to 80 percent of the land market value. Though legally freed, the private serf had to ransom his freedom by surrendering a part of the allotment land.
Redemption payments, however, soon proved too burdensome, village restrictions were tight, and the allotment land area declined, all of which led to renewed restlessness and disturbances. Following the revolt of 1905, the government, under Pyotr Stolypin, tried to create middle-class, independent farmers by replacing the village tenure with private ownership, consolidating holdings, and encouraging land purchase by individuals; but the time was too short for effective implementation.
b) The Soviet Revolution overthrew the tsarist regime and introduced the concepts of public ownership and collectivization. By decree in 1918, the Soviets abolished private ownership of land, made farming the sole basis of landholding, and declared collectivization a major objective of policy. Marketing of agricultural products became a state monopoly. In 1929 Stalin embarked on a full course of collectivization, and by 1938 collective farms occupied 85.6 percent of the land and state farms 9.1 percent. Credit facilities and tractor stations supplemented collectivization, while agricultural production was integrated in the national plan for industrialization and development.
The costs of Soviet reform included the destruction of capital and the death of large numbers of kulaks, or rich peasants. Total output and productivity increased, however, and capital formation was made possible through forced saving, taxes, and regulated prices. The peasant received extensive social services such as health care, and education and better working conditions.
Answer the questions.
1. How much land did collective farms occupy by 1938?
2. When was serfdom abolished?
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3. What reformer tried to create middle-class?
4. What conflict caused restlessness among the peasants?
Find equivalents.
- распределили землю по жребию
- конфликт между крайностями
- крепостной должен был выкупить свою свободу
- отменили частную собственность
- закон об отмене крепостного права
- пытался создать средний класс
- получил широкий набор социальных услуг
Write numbers and dates from the text above in words.
Make expressions using these words.
Hereditary, overthrow, embark, reminder, encouraging, serfdom, property.
Translate the text.
World reforms
a) Reform in Eastern Europe was complicated by the fact that most of the eastern European countries remained under foreign rule until the middle of the 19th century or later. The Romanian reform of 1864 freed the serfs and distributed both the land and the redemption payments in proportion to the number of cows or oxen each peasant had. Formal emancipation in Bulgaria was introduced by the Turkish government in the 1850s, but actual reform came in 1880, after independence. Each peasant, including sharecroppers and wage workers, who had worked the land for 10 years without interruption, was entitled to the land he had cultivated. Political instability reached a dangerous point between the two world wars. Following World War II, the eastern European countries established Communist governments with a strong tendency toward collective, cooperative, and mechanized agriculture.
b) The Mexican reform of 1915 followed a revolution and dealt mainly with lands of Indian villages that had been illegally absorbed by neighbouring haciendas (plantations). Legally there was no serfdom; but the Indian wage workers, or peons, were reduced to virtual serfdom through indebtedness. The immediate aim of reform was to restore the land to its legal owners, settle the title, and use public land to reconstruct Indian villages. The motives were mainly to reduce poverty and inequality and to secure political stability, which was then in the balance. A decree of 1915 voided all land alienations that had taken place illegally since 1856 and provided for extracting land from haciendas to reestablish the collective Indian villages, or ejidos. The 1917 constitution reaffirmed those provisions but also guaranteed protection of private property, including haciendas. Nevertheless, a combination of loopholes, litigation, and reactionary forces slowed implementation, and effective reform came only after passage of the Agrarian Code of 1934 and the sympathetic efforts of President Lázaro Cárdenas.
c) Reforms since World War II
The eastern European countries and China originally followed the Soviet model, with different modifications in the individual countries. A few other countries have continued to follow that model, with major emphasis on “land to the tiller,” cooperation, collective ownership, large-scale operation, and mechanization, and with economic development as the common denominator. In capitalist-oriented reforms, private ownership, family farming, and dual tenures have remained basic objectives with the aim of promoting democracy, equality, stability, and development. Under the influence and with the guidance of the United Nations, nonsocialist reforms of the 1950s were equated with community development and emphasized institutional and rural self-help in addition to land redistribution. In the 1960s the emphasis shifted to agricultural productivity and economic development by means of large-scale operation, new technology, and cooperation.
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D) Japan
The Japanese reform came immediately after World War II at the insistence of the Allied Occupation Army. The reform was designed to fit the uniquely high literacy rate and advanced industrial level of the country. Although the Meiji government had formally abolished feudalism and declared the land to be the property of the peasants, usurpation of land by the rich and by moneylenders had created classes of perpetual tenants and absentee landlords.
The reform law of 1946 established a ceiling on individual holdings and provided for expropriation and resale of excess land to the tenants against long-term payments. The government compensated the landlords in cash and bonds redeemable in 30 years. Tenants were protected by contract, and rents were reduced to a maximum of 25 percent of the product. The redistributed land was made inalienable, though this restriction was relaxed four years later. The program also provided for marketing and credit cooperatives. An important supplementary measure was the Local Autonomy Law of 1947, which decentralized the power structure and put village affairs in the hands of the villagers.
Find equivalents.
- изначально следовали советской модели
- экономическое развитие посредством крупномасштабной операции, новой технологии и сотрудничества
- правительство компенсировало землевладельцам наличными
- формально отменили феодальные порядки и провозгласили землю собственностью крестьян
- политическая нестабильность достигла опасного уровня
- включая дольщиков и наемных рабочих
- возможные уловки обойти закон, судебные тяжбы и реакционные силы
Answer the questions.
1. What was introduced by Turkish government in the 1850s?
2. What strong tendency was in eastern European countries after World War II?
3. What was the aim of the Local Autonomy Law of 1947 in Japan?
4. When did an effective reform come in Mexico?
5. How did the United Nations influence on reforms of the1950s?
6. What had the Meiji government declared?
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