Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/24

8 moujik is still the backbone of the Empire. He is a splendid worker when he is given a chance, and in Siberia and Central Asia he proves an ideal colonist. It is true that technically he is still a bad agriculturist. He is ignorant. He has no capital. He scratches the earth with his primitive plough, as in the days of Abraham. But enormous progress is being made, and great changes are impending. The Russian Government is instituting gigantic experiments in land reform, which our own land reformers would do well to follow very closely. Hitherto the communal system of property seems to have proved an insurmountable obstacle to agricultural progress. That form of collective primitive agriculture has now broken down. The ancient institution of the "mir," or village community, is being disintegrated. Communism is giving way to peasant proprietorship and social co-operation.

VI it is obvious that no reform of any kind will be carried through successfully until the methods of government in Russia have undergone drastic changes. Those hundred and seventy millions are still badly ruled. In the