Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/99

Rh CLASS DIVISIONS,] RUSSIA 83 1,422,012 males; but this category is now disappearing in conse- quence of a recent law (December 28, 1881). The allotments could be redeemed by the peasants with the help of the crown, and then the peasants were freed from all obliga- tions to the landlord. The crown paid the landlord in obligations representing the capitalized "obrok," and the peasants had to pay the crown, for forty-nine j*ears, 6 per cent, interest on this capital, that is, 9 to 12 roubles per allotment. If the redemption was made without the consent of the peasants on a mere demand of the landlord, or in consequence of his being in arrear for the pay- ment of his debts to the nobility hypothec bank the value of the redemption was reduced by one-fifth. The redemption was not calculated on the value of the allotments, 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 pro- vinces in the south-east, it was and still remains notwithstanding a very great increase of the value of land much higher than the market value of the allotment. Moreover, taking advantage of the maximum law, many proprietors cut away large parts of the allotments the peasants possessed under serfdom, and precisely the parts the peasants were most in need of, namely, pasture lands around their houses, and forests. On the whole, the tendency was to give the allotments so as to deprive the peasants of grazing land and thus to compel them to rent pasture lands from the landlord at any price. The present condition of the peasants according to official docu- ments -appears to be as follows. In the twelve central governments the peasants, on the average, have their own rye-bread for only 200 days per 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 be thus rented from the landlords at fabulous prices. Cattle-Tjreeding is diminishing to an alarming degree. The average redemption is 8 '56 roubles (about 17s.) for such allotments, and the smaller the allotment the heavier the payment, its first "dessiatina" (2 '86 acres) costing twice as much as the second, and four times as much as the third. In all these governments, the state commission testifies, there are whole districts where one-third of the peasants have received allotments of only 2 '9 to 5'8 acres. The aggregate value of the redemption and land-taxes often reaches from 185 to 275 per cent, of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of taxes for recruitisg purposes, the church, roads, local administration, and so on, chiefly levied from 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) leave their homes and wander throughout Russia in search of labour. The state peasants are only a little better off. Such is the state of affairs in central Russia, and it would be use- less to multiply figures, repeating nearly the same details. In the eight 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 ones. The average allotment in Kherson is now only 0'90 acre, and for allotments from 2 - 9 to 5'8 acres they pay from 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 govern- ments 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 western 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 peasants. Finally, in the Baltic provinces nearly all the land belongs to German landlords, who either carry on agriculture themselves, with hired labourers, or rent their land as 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 700,000,000 roubles of redemption money received from the crown down to 1877 by 71,000 landed proprietors in Russia have been spent without accomplishing any agricultural improvement. 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. As showing a better aspect of the situation it must, be added that in eighty-five districts of Russia the peasants have bought 5,349,000 acres of land since 1861. But these are mostly village- traders and grain-lenders (kulaks). A real exception can be made only for Tver, where 53,474 householders united in communities have bought 633,240 acres of land. There has been an increase of wealth among the few, but along with this a general impoverish- ment of the mass of the people. 1 The ancient Scandinavians described Russia as Garctariki, the The country of towns, and until now Great Russia has maintained village this character. The dwellings of the peasantry are not scattered coumiun- over the face of the country, but aggregated in villages, where they ity. are built in a street or streets. This grouping in villages has its origin in the bonds which unite the peasants in the village com- munity the mir, or the obslichina. When Haxthausen first described the Great Russian mir, it was considered a peculiarity of the Slavonian race, a view which is no longer tenable. The mir is the Great Russian equivalent for the German, Dutch, and Swiss "mark" or "allmend, the English "toAvnship," the French "commune," the Polish "gmina," the South Slavonian "zadruga," the Finnish "pittayii," &c. ; and it very nearly approaches, though differing from them in some essen- tial features, the forms of possession of laud prevailing among the Moslem Turco-Tartars, while the same principle is found even among the Mongol Buriat shepherds and the Tungus hunters. The following are the leading features of the organization of the mir among the Great Russians. The whole of the land occupied by a village whoever be the landlord recognized by law the state, a private person, or a juridical unity, such as the wisko of the Cossacks is considered as belonging to the village community as a whole, the separate members of the community having only the right of temporary possession of such part of the common property as will be allowed to them by the mir in proportion to their working power. To this right corresponds the obligation of bearing an adequate part of the charges which may fall upon the community. If any produce results from the common work of the community, each member has a right to an equal part of it. According to these general principles, the arable land is divided into as many lots as there are working units in the community, and each family receives as many lots as it has working units. The unit is usually one male adult ; but, when the working power of a large family is increased by its containing a number of adult women, or boys approaching adult age, this circumstance is taken into account, as well as the diminution from any cause of working power in other households. For dividing the arable land into lots, the whole is parted first into three "fields," according to the three-field rotation of crops. As each field, however, contains land of, various qualities, it is in its turn subdivided into, say, three parts of good, average, and poor quality ; and each of these parts is subdivided into as many lots as there are working units. Each household receives its lots in each of the subdivisions of the "field," a carefully minute equalization as to the minor differences between the lots being aimed at ; and the partition is nearly always made so as to permit each householder to reach his allotment without passing through that of another. To facilitate this division, the community divides, first, into smaller groups (vyt, zherebyevka, a "ten, "an "eight," &c.), each of which is composed, by free selection, of a number of householders the community only taking care that each shall not be composed of rich, of poor, or of "turbulents" exclusively. The division of the land is first made among such groups, and the subdivision goes on within these. The division into groups facilitates also the dis- tribution of such work as the community may have to accomplish as when a bridge or a ditch has to be repaired, or a meadow mowed and the work cannot be done by the community as a whole. As sickness, death, removal, and other incidents bring about changes in the distribution of working power among the different households, or when the number of working units in the com- munity has increased or decreased, a redistribution of land (peredyel) follows. Whether the land be a burden (the taxes exceeding its rental value) or a benefit, its division is equalized ; the households whose working power has increased receive ad- ditional lots, and vice versa. The peredyel may be "partial" or "general." In most cases a mere equalization of lots among several families will serve, and a general redistribution is resorted to only when greater inequalities have arisen. On the whole, these redistributions are rare, and the precariousness of land- holding which has been supposed to be a consequence of the mir proves to have been exaggerated. More detailed inquiries have 1 See Yanson's Researches on Allotments and Payments (2d ed., 1881) and Com- parative Statistics of Russia (vol. il.); Statistics of Landed Property, published by Central Statistical Committee ; works of the Committee on Taxation, and^those of the Committee of Inquiry into Petty Trades (12 vols.) ; Reports of the Com- mission on Agriculture; Collection of Materials on the Village Community (vol. i.); Collection of Materials on Landholding, and Statistical Descriptions of Separate Governments, published by several zemstvos (Moscow, Tver, Nijni, Tola, Ryazan, Tamboff, Poitava, Saratoff, <fec.) ; Kawelin, The Peasant Question ; Vasiltchi- koff, Land Property and Agriculture (2 vols.), and Villaye'Life and Agriculture; Ivanukoff, The Fall of Serfdom in Russia; Shashkoff, '"Peasantry in the Baltic Provinces," in Russkaya 'My si, 1883, iii. and ix. ; V. V., Agric. Sketches of Russia ; Golovatchoff, Capital and Peasant Farming; Enjrelhardt's Letters from the Country; many elaborate papers in reviews (all Kussian); and Appendix to Russian translation of Reclus's Geogr. Univ.