THE ACTIVITY OF SMALL CREDIT ZEMSTVO FUNDS IN THE PROVINCES OF DNIEPER REGION OF UKRAINE: HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The article analyzes the process of preparation of relevant legal acts, which during the years of the Stolypin agrarian reform were laid as the basis for the functioning of the zemstvo small credit funds. Taking into account the fact that the main ideas of the zemstvo credit, the purpose of which was to provide small commodity producers with working capital, were formulated long before the work of the so-called Special meeting on the needs of the agricultural industry’ and its local committees in the provinces and districts, the author substantiated the conclusion that the presence of the interest of broad sections of the population in the expansion of small credit institutions, involving zemstvo bodies of local self-government. A significant, if not decisive, factor in the increased attention of government circles to the problems of reforming all spheres of social life was the aggravation of social contradictions in the country, which were reflected in the well-known events of 1905-1907 years. It is not by chance that the draft of the model charter was developed at the suggestion of a number of local committees on the needs of the agricultural industry, a large part of which was directly related to the zemstvo self-government bodies. The fact that the main ideas of the project of the model statute, developed in 1904, were embodied in the final version of this statute, approved by the Minister of Finance in 1906, once again indicates the government’s desire to expand the opportunities of direct commodity producers, who most often belonged to the unprivileged distribution, as soon as possible, because part of the zemstvos, who belonged to the privileged classes of the society at that time, had access to long-term bank credit, and therefore did not show particular activity in the zemstvo small credit business.