[4] Statistical Reports for the Gubernia of Voronezh, Vol. I., p. 2.
[5] “The Zemstvo and the national economy,” by I. P. Bielokonsky. Severny Vestnik (monthly magazine), May, 1892.
[6] As the investigation of the gubernia of Ryazañ had not been brought to an end, the gaps have been filled in most cases by referring to the Reports for the gubernias of Voronezh, Tamboff and Smolensk, which are now likewise among those affected by the famine.
[7] Prof. W. J. Ashley, in the introductory chapter of his translation of The Origin of Property in Land by Fustel de Coulanges, represents the Russian village community as “only a joint cultivation and not a joint ownership.” The Russian mir, he thinks, has always in historical times been a “village group in serfdom under a lord” (p. xx.). This opinion stands in direct contradiction to the results of Russian historical investigation, which are here presented in a condensed summary. The development of landlord property in Russia, on the contrary, is but a fact of modern centuries; there are vast provinces in Russia where there never was anything like a nobility and landlord property (e. g., the gubernias of Olonetz, Vyatka, Vologda, Archangelsk), save in a few exceptional cases. Serfdom was altogether unknown in these districts, and in all the rest of Russia a considerable part of the peasantry, though dependent upon the State, knew no landlord above them. Toward 1861 the total number of State peasants amounted to 29⅓ millions, while the former serfs numbered 22⅔ millions. (Prof. Janson, Essay of a Statistical Investigation on the Peasants’ Landed Property and Taxation, 2d ed., p. 1.) Thus, in so far at least as one-half of the Russian peasantry is concerned, the village community must be construed, in direct opposition to Prof. Ashley, as “joint ownership and not joint cultivation.”
[8] Most of the Russians were doubtless extremely surprised to learn that bond serfdom in Russia was in existence up to this very year of 1892. The Kalmyks, a semi-nomadic tribe of 150,000 men, in southeastern Russia, near the Caspian Sea, remained serfs of their chiefs, the zaisangs and noyons, until the ukase issued on the 8th (20th) of May, 1892, whereby bond serfdom of the common Kalmyks was at last abolished.
[9] The government did not act in consistence with the principles of the emancipation of the serfs when applying in 1866 the “Statute on peasants freed from bond serfdom” to those freed from dependence upon the State. While the former were declared “peasant proprietors,” the latter were regarded only as hereditary tenants. A new law was subsequently passed, granting the former State peasants the right of buying out their lots from the State. I have not the respective statutes at hand, and am not certain as to the year in which the law was passed. It was certainly later than 1882, the year of the census whose reports we use further on.
[10] The indirect taxes are figured in the budget for the current year as follows:
RUBLES.
| 1892. | 1891. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sec. 4. | From liquors | 242,570,981 | 259,550,981 |
| ” 7. | ” naphtha | 10,026,800 | 9,528,500 |
| ” 8. | ” matches | 4,720,000 | 4,524,000 |
| ” 5. | ” tobacco | 27,741,102 | 28,213,102 |
| ” 6. | ” sugar | 21,174,000 | 20,161,000 |
| ” 9. | Customs duties | 110,900,000 | 110,929,000 |
| 417,182,883 | 432,906,583 |
(Cf. The Government Messenger, No. 1, 1892.) The taxes in Secs. 4, 7 and 8 are naturally paid chiefly by the peasants, who are the majority, and these items alone amount to from 62 to 63 per cent. of all indirect taxes.