Commoners Revolted During the Moscow Salt Riot of 1648

1598 saw the death of Ivan the Terrible’s son Feodor I, a notoriously weak and ineffective tsar who didn’t leave behind an heir, and what followed was a violent and financially catastrophic war of succession in which several parties with various claims to the Russian throne vied for power. 

Michael I eventually took control in 1913, founding the historic House of Romanov, but he and his administration would fail to adequately replenish the treasury by the time he passed away in 1645. Subsequently, he left something of a mess for his unfortunate successor, Alexis I. Money was not only scarce, but it was unevenly distributed among the people.

Similar to the French Revolution that would occur elsewhere in Europe around a hundred years later, the discontent among the people of Russia centered around food, and their access to it being either restricted or heavily taxed or both. In this case, one of the greatest table commodities was denied to the inhabitants of an empire: salt. It was a necessary staple, as preserved salted fishes and meats were essential to the survival of Russia’s populace, who relied on such foodstuffs to make it through extreme weather changes. The notoriously brutal winters made it virtually impossible to grow crops or hunt animals, and food needed to be aggressively stored away in the preceding months. 

Alexis’s government, ignoring these facts, still imposed heavy taxes on the widely used mineral in the hopes of raking in quick and much-needed cash for the new monarchy. The plan backfired spectacularly. No one was prepared for it. Artisans and serfs found themselves unable to afford the tax, and rich townsmen and boyars (nobility) didn’t pay their dues either. Instead, they found clever ways to avoid paying and still keep their lavish meals tasty and well-seasoned and their larders well-stocked. 

Widespread hatred was especially directed at the governor of Moscow, Leontiy Stepanovich Plescheyev, and the Tsar’s advisor, Boris Morozov, whose policies and taxations were overwhelmingly unpopular to the point where the people felt compelled to organize themselves and demand drastic change. They petitioned Alexis I to rule independently from his domineering counsellors, who were considered shameless graspers and usurpers of power, and they insisted in an address to the tsar that Morozov and his minions were turning "your Tsarist Majesty against the people, and the people against your Tsarist Majesty." 

But the series of complaints to the tsar were not entirely unselfish and community-based. Landed boyars were also demanding that the time limit to reclaim escaped serfs be eradicated. They wanted the privilege to reclaim their serfs within any time frame and bind them back to their properties. Everybody seemed to have a personalized agenda. 

Matters reached a boiling point on the first of June 1648, the day the tsar was travelling back from a visit to the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius monastery. He and his entourage were swarmed by a crowd of disgruntled Muscovites, who demanded that Alexis hear their grievances against the greedy boyars and the national administrators. But Alexis declined to listen to their pleas, and his bodyguards fought back against the people. This ignited a wave of furious retribution from the betrayed petitioners. The people would not and could not be ignored. 

On the second of June, the Kremlin was infiltrated by a flood of rioters who intended to forcefully remove several officials from their offices. The people were very specific about who they wanted out: Boris Morozov (naturally), his powerful brother-in-law Pyotr Trakhaniotov, the distrusted head of the police department Leontii Pleshcheyev, and the much-detested salt tax coordinator Duma diak Nazar Chistoy. Morozov overstepped himself once again and ordered the Streltsy infantry to attack the protestors. The unit of Russian musketeers refused, and instead sided with the people. 

Alexis wanted Pleshceyev spared from punishment, but eventually turned him over to the rampaging crowd in order to appease them. Historian Valerie Kivelson gives a gruesome account of Pleshceyev’s ultimate fate at the hands of the rebels on the third of June, describing how  "they cuggeled him so black and blue and with axes they cut him asunder like a fish, the pieces they let lie naked here and there.” 

Over the following days, White City and Kitai-gorod, central neighbourhoods and cultural centers of the city of Moscow, were put to the torch by the out-of-control mob. They burned down somewhere between 15,000 and 24,000 houses, and the number of casualties rose to somewhere between 1,700 to 2,000 people. Targeted most aggressively were the boyars and anyone in or above the comfortable middle class. It was a bloodbath fueled by class inequality. 

Alexis finally began to negotiate, though matters would still end unfairly for the serfs. The Streltsy unit got off well. They were bribed with a salary increase if they withdrew their support from the rioters, and so they did. The rest of the people were offered a much smaller compensation: Morozov would be removed from power and exiled to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. This seemed to placate the rioters enough to disband them, but the upper classes took advantage of the precarious political climate to maneuver to get their own way. 

The zemsky sobor, or Assembly of the Land, came together and stripped the serfs of even more rights, including (as mentioned before) restricting even further their chances of escaping abusive masters. Rebel leaders were hunted down and arrested. Boris Morozov snuck back into Moscow and took his place at Alexis’s side again. The salt riot of 1648 led to virtually no changes for the commonfolk. 

Sources: “The Devil Stole His Mind: The Tsar and the 1648 Moscow Uprising” via JSTOR.