Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/932

 From the Molokani the Dukhobortsi, in England better known as (q.v.), are distinguished by their subordination of the Scriptures to the authority of the “inner light.” They are dualists, like the (q.v.), ascribing the body to a fall from a state when the soul was on the same plane as God. The Incarnation was no isolated historical occurrence, but it is repeated over and over again in the faithful, each one of whom is in a certain sense God, by virtue of the indwelling Spirit. Both the Molokani and the Dukhobortsi deny the authority of the civil government as such, and object on principle to military service. The former, however, give little trouble; on the other hand, the government has from time to time proceeded with extreme severity against the Dukhobortsi, whose refusal to serve in the army, if allowed to go unpunished, would have set a contagious example.

Dissidence of all kinds has made a considerable advance since the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the increase—as might be expected in a wholly illiterate population—being greatest in the more extravagant sects. On the other hand, Western Protestantism has also made great headway, notably the Stundists, whose rationalistic-Protestant teaching has gained a firm foothold especially in Little Russia, where the Raskol never penetrated. The Baptists have also made considerable progress, notably among the Molokani.

Social Conditions.—The old subdivisions of the population into orders possessed of unequal rights is still maintained. The great mass of the people, 81.6%, belong to the peasant order, the others being: nobility, 1.3%; clergy, 0.9; the burghers and merchants, 9.3; and military, 6.1. Thus more than 88 millions of the Russians are peasants. Half of them were formerly serfs (10,447,149 males in 1858)—the remainder being “state peasants” (9,194,891 males in 1858, exclusive of the Archangel government) and “domain peasants” (842,740 males the same year).

The serfdom which had sprung up in Russia in the 16th century, and became consecrated by law in 1609, taking, however, nearly one hundred and fifty years to attain its full growth, was abolished in 1861. This act liberated the serfs from a yoke which was really terrible, even under the best landlords, and from this point of view it was obviously an immense benefit. But it was far from securing corresponding economic results.

The household servants or dependents attached to the personal service of their masters were merely set free; and they entirely went to reinforce the town proletariat. The peasants proper received their houses and orchards, and allotments of arable land. These allotments were given over to the rural commune (mir), which was made responsible, as a whole, for the payment of taxes for the allotments. For these allotments the peasants had to pay, as before, either by personal labour or by a fixed rent. The allotments could be redeemed by them with the help of the crown, and then they were freed from all obligations to the landlord. The crown paid the landlord in obligations representing the capitalized rent, and the peasants had to pay the crown, for forty-nine years, 6% interest on this capital. The redemption was not calculated on the value of the allotments of land, but was considered as a compensation for the loss of the compulsory labour of the serfs; so that throughout Russia, with the exception of a few provinces in the S.E., it was—and still remains, notwithstanding a very great increase in the value of land—much higher than the market value of the allotment. Moreover, many proprietors contrived to curtail seriously the allotments which the peasants had possessed under serfdom, and frequently they deprived them of precisely the parts which they were most in need of, namely, pasture lands around their houses, and forests. The effect of this, craftily calculated beforehand, was to compel the peasants to rent pasture lands from the landlord at any price.

The present condition of the peasants—according to official documents—appears to be as follows. In the twelve central governments they grow, on the average, sufficient rye-bread for only 200 days in the year—often for only 180 and 100 days. One quarter of them have received allotments of only 2.9 acres per male, and one-half less than 8.5 to 11.4 acres—the normal size of the allotment necessary to the subsistence of a family under the three-fields system being estimated at 28 to 42 acres. Land must thus of necessity be rented from the landlords at fabulous prices. The aggregate value of the redemption and land taxes often reaches 185 to 275% of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of taxes for recruiting purposes, the church, roads, local administration and so on, chiefly levied from the peasants. The arrears increase every year; one-fifth of the inhabitants have left their houses; cattle are disappearing. Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three-fourths of the men and one-third of the women) quit their homes and wander throughout Russia in search of labour. In the governments of the black-earth region the state of matters is hardly better. Many peasants took the “gratuitous allotments,” whose amount was about one-eighth of the normal allotments.

The average allotment in Kherson is only 0.90 acre, and for allotments from 2.9 to 5.8 acres the peasants pay 5 to 10 roubles of redemption tax. The state peasants are better off, but still they are emigrating in masses. It is only in the steppe governments that the situation is more hopeful. In Little Russia, where the allotments were personal (the mir existing only among state peasants), the state of affairs does not differ for the better, on account of the high redemption taxes. In the W. provinces, where the land was valued cheaper and the allotments somewhat increased after the Polish insurrection, the general situation might be better were it not for the former misery of the peasants. Finally, in the Baltic provinces nearly all the land belongs to the German landlords, who either farm the land themselves, with hired labourers, or let it in small farms. Only one-fourth of the peasants are farmers, the remainder being mere labourers, who are emigrating in great numbers.

The situation of the former serf-proprietors is also unsatisfactory. Accustomed to the use of compulsory labour, they have failed to accommodate themselves to the new conditions. The millions of roubles of redemption money received from the crown have been spent without any real or lasting agricultural improvements having been affected. The forests have been sold, and only those landlords are prospering who exact rack-rents for the land without which the peasants could not live upon their allotments. During the years 1861 to 1892 the land owned by the nobles decreased 30%, or from 210,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres; during the following four years an additional 2,119,500 acres were sold; and since then the sales have gone on at an accelerated rate, until in 1903 alone close upon 2,000,000 acres passed out of their hands. On the other hand, since 1861, and more especially since 1882, when the Peasant Land Bank was founded for making advances to peasants who were desirous of purchasing land, the former serfs, or rather their descendants, have between 1883 and 1904 bought about 19,500,000 acres from their former masters. There has been an increase of wealth among the few, but along with this a general impoverishment of the mass of the people, and the peculiar institution of the mir, framed on the principle of community of ownership and occupation of the land, was not conducive to the growth of individual effort. In November 1906, however, the emperor Nicholas II. promulgated a provisional ukaz permitting the peasants to become freeholders of allotments made at the time of emancipation, all redemption dues being remitted. This measure, which was endorsed by the third Duma in an act passed on the 21st of December 1908, is calculated to have far-reaching and profound effects upon the rural economy of Russia. Thirteen years previously the government had endeavoured to secure greater fixity and permanence of tenure by providing that at least twelve years must elapse between every two redistributions of the land belonging to a mir amongst those entitled to share in it. The ukaz of November 1906 had provided that the various strips of land held by each peasant should be merged into a single holding; the Duma, however, on the advice of the government, left this to the future, as an ideal that could only gradually be realized.

The co-operative spirit of the Great Russians shows itself in another sphere in the artel, which has been a prominent feature

of Russian life since the dawn of history. The artel very much resembles the co-operative society of W. Europe, with this difference that it makes its appearance without 