Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/100

Rh RUSSIA [VILLAGE COMJI UNITIES. shown that no redistribution is made without urgent necessity. Thus, to quote but one instance, in 4442 village communities of Moscow, the average number of redistributions has been 2*1 in twenty years (1858-78), and in more than two-thirds of these communities the redistribution took place only once. On the other hand, a regular rotation of all households over all lots, in order to equalize the remaining minor inequalities, is very often practised in the black-earth region, where no manure is needed. Besides the arable mark, there is usually a vygon (or " common ") for grazing, to which all householders send their cattle, whatever the number they possess. The meadows are either divided on the above principles, or mowed in common, and the hay divided according to the number of lots. The forests, when consisting of small wood in sufficient quantity, are laid under no regulations ; when this is scarce, every trunk is counted, and valued according to its age, number of branches, &c. , and the whole is divided accord- ing to the number of lots. The houses and the orchards behind them belong also, in prin- ciple, to the community ; but no peredyel is made, except after a fire or when the necessity arises of building the houses at greater distances apart. The orchards usually remain for years in the same hands, with but slow equalizations of the lots in width. All decisions in the village community are given by the mir, that is, by the general assembly of all householders, women being admitted on an equal footing with men, when widows, or when their male guardians are absent. For the decisions unanimity is neces- sary ; and, though in some difficult cases of a general peredyel the discussions may last for two or three days, no decision is reached until the minority has declared its agreement with the majority. Each commune elects an elder (starosta) ; he is the executive, but has no authority apart from that of the mir whose decisions he carries out. All attempts on the part of the Government to make him a functionary have failed. Opinion as to the advantages and disadvantages of the village community being much divided in Russia, it has been within the last twenty years the subject of extensive inquiry, both private and official, and of an ever-growing literature and polemic. The supporters of the mir are found chiefly among those who have made more or less extensive inquiries into its actual organization and con- sequences, while their opponents draw their arguments principally from theoretical considerations of political economy. The main reproach that it checks individual development and is a source of immobility has been shaken of late by a better knowledge of the institution, which has brought to light its remarkable plasticity and power of adaptation to new circumstances. The free settlers in Siberia have voluntarily introduced the same organization. In north and north-east Russia, where arable land is scattered in small patches among forests, communities of several villages, or "volost ' com- munities, have arisen ; and in the " voisko " of the Ural Cossacks we find community of the whole territory as regards both land and fish- eries and work in common. If ay, the German colonists of southern Russia, who set out with the principle of personal property, have sub- sequently introduced that of the village community, adapted to their special needs (Clauss). In some localities, where there was no great scarcity of land and the authorities did not interfere, joint cultiva- tion of a common area for filling the storehouses has recently been developed (in Penza 974 communes have introduced this system and cultivate an aggregate of 26,910 acres). The renting of land in common, or even purchase of land by wealthy communes, has become quite usual, as also the purchase in common of agricultural imple- ments. Since the emancipation of the serfs, however, the mir has been undergoing profound modifications. The differences of wealth which ensued, the impoverishment of the mass, the rapid increase of the rural proletariat, and the enrichment of a few " kulaks " and "miroyedes" (" mir-eaters "), are certainly operating un- favourably for the mir. The miroyedes steadily strive to break up the organization of the commune as an obstacle to the extension of their power over the moderately well-to-do peasants ; while the proletariat cares little about the mir. Fears on the one side and hopes on the other have been thus entertained as to the likelihood of the mir resisting these disintegrating influences, favoured, more- over, by those landowners and manufacturers who foresee in the creation of a rural proletariat the certainty of cheap labour. But the village community does not appear as yet to have lost the power of adaptation which it has exhibited throughout its history. If, indeed, the impoverishment of the peasants continues to go on, and legislation also interferes with the mir, it must of course disap- pear, but not without a corresponding disturbance in Russian life. 1 The co-operative spirit of the Great Russians shows itself further i See Collection of Material* on Village Communities, published by the Geogra- phical and Economical Societies, vol. i. (containing a complete bibliography up to 1330). Of more recent works the following are worthy of notice : Lntchitsky, Collection of Material* for the History of the Village Community in the Ukraine, Kieff, 1884; Efimenko, Researches into Popular Life, 1884 ; Hantower, On the Origin of the Czinti Possession, 1884 ; Samokvasoff. History of Haitian Laic. 1884; Keussler, Zur Qesehichte und Kritit det bauerlichen Oemeinde-Betittet in Rustland, 2 vols., 1884; and papers in publications of Geographical Society. in another sphere in the artels, which have also been a prominent feature of Russian life since the dawn of history. The artel very much resembles the co-operative society of western Europe, with this difference that it makes its appearance without any impulse from theory, simply as a natural form of popular life. When workmen from any province come, for instance, to St Petersburg to engage in the textile industries, or to work as carpenters, masons, &c., they immediately unite in groups of from ten to fifty persons, settle in a house together, keep a common table, and pay each his part of the expense to the elected elder of the arteL All Russia is covered with such artels, in the cities, in the forests, on the banks of rivers, on journeys, and even in the prisons. The industrial artel is almost as frequent as the preceding, in all those trades which admit of it. A social history of the most funda- mental state of Russian society would be a history of their hunting, fishing, shipping, trading, building, exploring artels. Artels of one or two hundred carpenters, bricklayers, &c., are common wherever new buildings have to be erected, or railways or bridges made ; the contractors always prefer to deal with an artel, rather than with separate workmen. The same principles are often put into practice in the domestic trades. It is needless to add that the wages divided by the artels are higher than those earned by isolated workmen. Finally, a great number of artels on the stock exchange, in the seaports, in the great cities (commissionaires), during the great fairs, and on railways have grown up of late, and have acquired the confidence of tradespeople to such an extent that considerable sums of money and complicated banking operations are frequently handed over to an artelshik (member of an artel) without any receipt, his number or his name being accepted as sufficient guarantee. These artels are recruited only on personal acquaint- ance with the candidates for membership, and security reaching 80 to 100 is exacted in the exchange artels. These last have a tendency to become mere joint-stock companies employing salaried sen-ants. Co-operative societies have lately been organized by several zemstvos. They have achieved good results, but do not exhibit, on the whole, the same unity of organization as those which have arisen in a natural way among peasants and artisans.* The chief occupation of the population of Russia is agriculture. Agri- Only in a few parts of Moscow, Vladimir, and Nijni has it been cultun abandoned for manufacturing pursuits. Cattle-breeding is the leading industry in the Steppe region, the timber-trade in the north-east, and fishing on the White and Caspian Seas. Of the total surface of Russia, 1,237,360,000 acres (excluding Finland), 1,018,737,000 acres are registered, and it appears that 39 '9 per cent of these belongs to the crown, 1'9 to the domains (udel), 31 '2 to peasants, 247 to landed proprietors or to private com- panies, and 2 "3 to the towns and monasteries. Of the acres registered only 592,650,000 can be considered as "good," that is, capable of paying the hind tax ; and of these 248,630,000 acres were under crop in 1884. 3 The crops of 1883 were those of an average year, that is, 2 - 9 to 1 in central Russia, and 4 to 1 in south Russia, anq were estimated as follows (seed corn being left out of account) : Rye, 49,185,000 quarters ; wheat, 21,605,000 ; oats, 50,403,000 ; barley, 13,476,000 ; other grains, 18,808,000. Those of 1884 (a very good year) reached an average of 18 per cent higher, except oats. The crops are, however, very unequally distributed. In an average year there are 8 governments which are some 6,930,000 quarters short of their requirements, 35 which have an excess of 33,770,000 quarters, and 17 which have neither excess nor deficiency. The export of corn from Russia is steadily increasing, having risen from 6,560,000 quarters in 1856-60 to an average of 23,700,000 quarters in 1876-83 and 26,623,700 quarters in 1884. This increase does not prove, however, an excess of corn, for even when one-third of Russia was famine-stricken, during the last years of scarcity, the export trade did not decline ; even Samara exported during the hist famine there, the peasants being compelled to sell their corn in autumn to pay their taxes. Scarcity is quite usual, the food supply of some ten provinces being exhausted every year by the end of the spring. Orach, and even bark, are then mixed with flour for making bread. Flax, both for yarn and seed, is extensively grown in the north- west and west, and the annual production is estimated at 6,400,000 cwts. of fibre and 2,900,000 quarters of linseed. Hemp is largely cultivated in the central governments, the yearly production being 2 See Tsaeff on Artels in Russia, and in Appendix to Russian translation of Reclus; Kalatchoff, The Artels of Old and If em Russia ; Reeueil of Materials on Artels (2 vols.); Scherbina, South Russian Artels; Nemiroff, Stodk Exchange Artels (all Russian). 8 The division of the registered land is as f ollows, the figures being percentages of the whole : Arable Land. Forests. Meadows, Pasture. Unproductive. 53-8 10-1 26-6 9-5 27-2 37-6 23-1 11-9 1-7 64-3 1-6 32-4 Total 26-3 38-7 15-9 19-1