| PAGE | |
| [Introduction. The Rise of “Peasantism.”] | 7 |
| [Chapter I. General Sketch of the Development of Landholding in Russia] | 19 |
| The Russian village community of historical times—Survivals of communal co-operation—The communistic peasant household—Origins of private property in land—Patrimony and fee—Slavery resulting from the obligation of loan—Tenure in fee an institute of public law—Limitation of the peasant’s right of migration—The fee becomes hereditary—Statute of Peter the Great on inheritance in the estates held by the nobility; abolition of the distinction between patrimony and fee—The poll tax—Slaves and serfs put upon a common footing—Emancipation of the nobility from their duty toward the state—The serfs agitated by a feeling in favor of emancipation—“Land and Liberty”—The question discussed in the Legislative Assembly convoked by Catherine II.—Insurrection under the head of Emilian Pougatchoff—Further developments of the abolitionist problem—Peasant riots about the time of the Crimean War—Economic necessity of abolition of serfdom—Evolution of private property achieved by the emancipation—Expropriation of the peasantry—Legends of land nationalization popular with the peasantry—The Statute of 1861 in its characteristic features—Russian taxation—Limitation of the personal liberty of the taxpayer—The village community upheld by over-taxation of the land—Counteracting influence of the rise of rent. | |
| [Chapter II. Community of Land] | 37 |
| The region selected for review with regard to geographical position and population—Forms of ownership in land—Agrarian communism—Community of land with shares fixed in perpetuity—History of the latter form of ownership—Evolution of the same into agrarian communism—Opinions of Russian students on the origin of agrarian communism. | |
| [Chapter III. The Productive Forces of the Peasantry] | 47 |
| Normal size of a farm required by the present state of agriculture—Actual size of peasant farms—Legal discrimination—Want of fodder—Depressed condition of stock breeding—Want of fuel—Manure used as fuel—The land not fertilized—Exhaustion of the soil—Improper situation of the lots—Yields of cereals—Balance of peasant agriculture—Review of real peasant budgets—Development of money economy in peasant farming. | |
| [Chapter IV. Taxation of the Peasant] | 59 |
| The taxes in inverse ratio to the income—The redemption tax paid by the former serf—Assessment per capita—Arrears in taxes—Bearing upon the peasant’s live stock—The fiscal system lived down by economic development. | |
| [Chapter V. Communal Tenure and Small Holdings] | 67 |
| Economic relations arising from the lack of land—Tenure at will—Community as party to the agreement—Easements—Pasture—Tendency toward individualism produced by inequality of wealth and money economy—Arable land and grass land—Individualism prevailing—Communal agreements—Influence of divergent interests within the community—Rental partnerships, a step toward individualism. | |
| [Chapter VI. The Evolution of the Farmer into the Agricultural Laborer] | 75 |
| Relations between landlord and tenant—Division of crops—Labor in payment for rent—Tendency towards money agreements—Rise of rent—Rate of rent to wages—Differentiation of tenant and farm laborer. | |
| [Chapter VII. The Wages in the Rural Districts] | 80 |
| Farmer as wage-worker—Farm work prevailing—Indebtedness of the farmer—Wages in rural districts cut down by the farmer-workingman—Low wages a drawback to the development of industry—Pauperism. | |
| [Chapter VIII. The Rural Surplus Population] | 85 |
| Increasing movement away from the rural districts—Wages higher abroad—The bonds to the village severed—Growth of the proletariat. | |
| [Chapter IX. The Dissolution of the Patriarchal Family] | 90 |
| The position of the peasantists and of the government in the question—Opinions of students of peasant life on the dissolution of the patriarchal family—The typical family of to-day—Influence of outside jobs—Parcellation of the soil—Landless—Ruin of the farmer occasioned by the decay of family co-operation—The employing farmer. | |
| [Chapter X. The Modern Agricultural Classes] | 104 |
| The vagueness of class distinctions at a primitive stage of economic development—The peasantist conception of class antagonism in the village—Results of statistical investigation—Farmers deriving a net profit from agriculture—Farmer and business man—Concentration of the land and a strong patriarchal household—The employing farmer developing side by side with the dissolution of the compound family—The rural proletariat—Lack of land—The dissolution of the patriarchal family complete—The Russian proletarian as wage-laborer and employer at the same time—The transitional class—Deficit in the balance of farming resulting from the division of the co-operative family—The farmer as wage laborer—Imminent transition into the proletarian class—“The struggle of generations” in the village a reflected form of class antagonism. | |
| [Chapter XI. Individual Ownership and Agrarian Communism] | 123 |
| Their effects upon the distribution of landed property—Lease of communal land a step toward expropriation of the poor—Speculation in peasant lots—Mobilisation of communal land. | |
| [Chapter XII. The Redivision of the Communal Land] | 130 |
| The censuses for the assessment of the poll tax—Redivisions of land—General redivisions—Partial redivisions brought into disuse by the rise of rent—Lease of communal land a check to its redivision by the mir—Vote required for redivision—Privilege for the wealthy minority—Concentration of communal land in private hands—Influence of redemption—Antagonism of economic interests within the village—Dissolution of the community going on. | |
| [Note]: The “inalienability” scheme. | |
| [Chapter XIII. Agriculture on a Large Scale] | 138 |
| The peasantist view of the matter—The destinies of capitalism in Russia, by V. V.—Large agriculture and peasant farming—Backwardness of large agriculture—The latter still prevailing over small peasant tenure—Agriculture progressing with the increase of the estate—The beginnings of capitalistic agriculture—Decrease in the dominions of the nobility—Growth of capitalistic property in land—Displacement of the small tenant by the capitalist farmer—Progressive tendencies of capitalistic management—Substitution of the small farmer by the proletarian laborer—Economic dependence of the nobility upon the small farmer—Imminent ruin of the landed nobility. | |
| [Chapter XIV. Conclusion: The Consequences of the Famine] | 157 |
| The bearing of the above discussion upon Middle Russia at large—The economic policy of the Government—Crédit Foncier for the peasants, and its failure—The famine a result of agricultural backwardness—Failure of the peasantry and of the landed nobility—The rise of capitalistic agriculture. | |
| [Appendices. Statistical Tables.] | |
| I. Distribution of land among the several sections of the peasant population | 166 |
| I., a. Acreage of a peasant farm | 167 |
| II. Taxation of the peasantry | 168 |
| III. Arrears in taxes | 169 |
| IV. Distribution of rented land: A.—With regard to ownership in land; B.—With regard to stock-breeding | 170 |
| V. Budgets of typical peasant households | 171 |
| VI. Wages of the peasant in industrial employment: A.—Local; B.—Outside | 180 |
| VII. Average yields of wheat | 182 |
INTRODUCTION.
THE RISE OF “PEASANTISM.”
The awful famine which has lately been raging over an area as large as the territory of the Dreibund, and inhabited by a population as numerous as that of the “allied Republic,” has called the attention of the whole civilized world to the condition of the starving Russian peasant. A movement has been set on foot in this country to relieve the hard need of the sufferers. This has induced me to think that it would perhaps not be without some interest for the American student of economics to cast a glance at the rural conditions which have finally resulted in that tremendous calamity. I felt bound to improve the opportunity of having been educated in Russia, by introducing the American reader to some one portion of the vast Russian economic literature which, because of the language, remains as yet completely unknown to the scientific world at large.
Russians by education, though not by ethnical descent, who, in spite of having identified themselves with the cause of the Russian people, are now denied the honorable title of “Russian,” may find consolation in the fact that the first investigator of Russian history (Schlözer), the first grammarian who scientifically elaborated the laws of Russian grammar, our Brown (Vostokoff = von Osteneck), the best, if not the first Russian lexicographer, our Webster (Dahl), and finally the man who, it may be said, discovered for the Russian public the Russian village community, the mir (Freiherr August von Haxthausen), were all of foreign birth.
The last named discovery was destined to play a prominent part in the subsequent political history of Russia. Agrarian communism, spread throughout a vast country during an age of extreme economic individualism, when the last traces of such a form of possession were deeply buried in the past of European nations, gave rise for years to an erroneous theory both in Russia and in Western Europe, viz: that this was a specifically Russian or Slavic institution. In Russia it contributed greatly towards drawing the line between the two parties of the Russian educated class in “the epoch of the forties,” between the “occidentalists” (zapadniki) and the “slavophiles.”
The latter regarded the village community as being, with autocracy and orthodoxy, an emanation of the Russian “national spirit.” These three institutions were predestined in their belief to prevent Holy Russ from entering upon the impious ways of the “rotten West,” with its class antagonism, extremes of luxury and poverty, intestinal discords and civil wars.
Precisely for the same reasons, considering the village community as an integral part of the prevailing system of paternalism, the “occidentalists,” opposed to autocracy and orthodoxy, strove for the abolition of the mir as well as of bond serfdom.
The archaic communism of the mir appeared to them to stand in acute contradiction to Western liberalism or individualism. The “epoch of emancipation,” however, that came to realize the aspirations of the occidentalists, brought about a fundamental change of public opinion in regard to the village community.