Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/599

Rh its immediate object the formation of a class of small proprietors who would be loyal to the state, moved by gratitude for the property rights granted them and the desire to retain those rights. Even small property owners are in general on the side of law and order and against that anarchy which destroys real wealth. Doubtless, also, the government felt that so long as the peasants held land in community ownership they would act as communities in other matters; and when it came to an expression of grievances it could more easily deal with individuals than groups.

It may be questioned whether the mere transition from communal to private ownership held in itself any salvation for the starving peasantry. If the land remained split up into tiny parcels, it was a matter of little moment whether the title lay with a group or with an individual. About 18 per cent, of the mujiks already owned their land in perpetuity. Exact statistics dealing with the subject are lacking, but it would seem that these were for the most part no more prosperous than their communistic neighbors. Some of them had so little land that they were of necessity very poor. Having been offered in 1861 their choice between a certain number of dessiatines at a fixed price and one fourth of this amount as a gift they had chosen the latter alternative. Others had bought their shares from the community but received them for the most part in such small parcels that they could not be worked to advantage. Private ownership, therefore, where known, did not always wear an alluring garb. In many places it was wholly unknown. Communal ownership, on the other hand, was an old institution, generally prevalent and deeply ingrained in the people. They saw in it safety for themselves and for their posterity. So long as the village continued to own the soil there was a bit for every man and for his sons and grandsons.

In the light of these considerations it is not strange that the great bulk of peasants were not inclined to take advantage of the new law. There were, however, two classes to whom it appealed. One was captured by the clause which provided that the family whose holding was larger than it would be, were a redistribution made now, might buy, at the price attached to this land in 1861, the difference between what it held and what it would receive in the event of a redistribution. Land having trebled in value during the last half century, such a family would of course profit greatly by a purchase on these terms. The other class was made up of those peasants who held parcels of land as members of a community but who had taken up their abode in some city or industrial center. Such were glad to receive their parcels in private ownership because they could then sell them. Aside from these two classes, there were of course some mujiks who seized this opportunity of getting compact farms, which, being their own, they could work as they pleased in