Leo Tolstoy versus Pyotr Stolypin: the dispute about land

The article deals with the dispute that occurred in the beginning of the XX century between the Prime Minister and the writer about the property right to land and in a more comprehensive sense, about the expediency of the agrarian reform carried out by P. A. Stolypin. L. N. Tolstoy believed that land could not be privately owned. The Prime Minister argued that only private ownership would let the Russian peasants care for the land, feel concern about its fertility and make better use of it. As the results of the reform showed, before World War I Russia became the largest grower and exporter of agricultural products in the world. As a result, before the WW1 Russia become the largest producer and exporter of agricultural products in the world, including grain crops. The success was so obvious that land reforms in Russiabecame the subject of study by scientists in the developed countries. Thus, in the dispute between the great writer and the great state official Stolypin eventually turned to be right. Notably this historical argue is actualized by the interests of the both personages to the fertile mordovian land where Stolypin had estate and took place on the background of complex personal relationship of the reformer and the writer who knew the father of the Prime-minister very well.