A year in Russia

by Maurice Baring

To understand the cause of the present state of agriculture in Russia, owing to the disastrous nature of which the agricultural question is the acutest of the problems which have to be settled by the Duma, it is necessary to go back to the time of the emancipation of the serfs.

It is from this epoch that the ruin of Russian agriculture primarily dates; it was then that the first crash occurred, and it was due to the following causes. The landlords, who had been accustomed to obtain manual labour for nothing, proved incapable of adapting themselves at once to the new conditions, and they did one of two things. They either spent the money they received from the Government in return for the land which they had given up in fruitless efforts to make agricultural improvements—fruitless because, being devoid of practical knowledge, they did what was not necessary and left undone what was imperative; or they simply spent the money anyhow until they had none left. Hence agricultural depression. Half the landlords in Russia disappeared, and their vacant places were occupied firstly in a small degree by peasants, and secondly in a greater degree by merchants, who were determined to extract the uttermost farthing from their possessions. In this manner there came into existence a new and mixed class of landed proprietors, who can be divided into two principal sections: (1) Those who let all their land to the peasants; (2) those who endeavoured as far as possible to carry on agriculture rationally, and arrived, in spite of the obstacles inherent in the circumstances, at comparatively good results.

As everybody is probably now aware, the question of expropriation of private property is being brought forward as a solution of the land question. And the question of expropriation as it is now being discussed applies to the second as well as the first class of proprietors mentioned above. With regard to the first class there is no possible argument against the expropriation of all their land. With regard to the second class, their land, considered from the point of view of the State, represents a considerable asset. If this land were immediately to be handed over in entirety to the peasants, the value that it represents to the State would cease to exist, because the peasants have not at this moment the means of keeping the output of the land up to its present level. And it would be impossible at this moment for the State to provide them with the necessary means. It is just because the peasants are without the necessary means—because, in a word, they are too poor—that they are asking for more land.

Therefore, from the point of view of the State, it is clear that if a plan of wholesale expropriation is put into practice the immediate results will be a decrease of public revenue and an increase of agricultural depression all over Russia. If we look at the question from the point of view of the peasants, the relief which they would obtain by wholesale expropriation would be only of a temporary nature, even if we presuppose that the distribution of land could be carried out on the same scale and in the same proportion as at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, which is improbable. The relief would be only temporary, because owing to the constant increase of the population the land would dwindle in an equally constant and increasing process of subdivision, and the State would be unable to come to the aid of the peasants and to furnish them with the means of improving their methods of agriculture, owing to the fall of revenue occasioned as aforesaid by the expropriation.

Besides the expropriation of private property, what further solutions are suggested? There are two further schemes which are under discussion: expropriation of the lands belonging to the State, and emigration into the undeveloped portions of the Russian Empire. There are in Russia large stretches of land belonging to the State and to the Crown; but they consist principally of woods, and it is therefore highly undesirable that they should be touched, for since Russia suffers from extremes of heat and cold, from dryness, and from the continental quality of its climate, the woods, which give moisture, are of the utmost value, especially at the present moment when so many woods belonging to private landowners have been and are being cut down.

Next comes the question of emigration. There exist in Siberia and Turkestan immense stretches of rich and fertile country; this being so it is obvious that if an emigration scheme could be carried out on a large scale the land question would be on a fair way towards settlement, and the State would be in possession of fresh resources.

The Left parties in general meet this plan with two objections: they say (1) that the peasants are not capable of adapting themselves to the new local conditions of agriculture which they would have to face; (2) that the expenses entailed by the agricultural installation of the emigrants, who would have to be provided with everything, could not possibly be met, and that therefore emigration cannot be regarded as a definite solution of the land question.

These objections are in their turn met with the following counter-arguments. It is said that the first objection has been proved to be groundless by the cases of emigration in Turkestan, where it is seen that the peasants who emigrate thither adapt themselves with surprising facility and rapidity to new conditions, which include a peculiarly complicated system of irrigation, and have nothing in common with the agricultural conditions of Russia proper. It might also be stated that Russians in general, and the peasants in particular, are a singularly adaptable race, as is proved by the ease and the speed with which those who emigrate to Europe and America adapt themselves to their altered circumstances.

As to the second question, that of expense, it is far more serious. But here it is objected that the premises on which those who are opposed to emigration on the grounds of expense base their arguments are derived from the results obtained at an epoch when emigration, like everything else, was as badly managed as possible; and that owing to this bad management hostility towards emigration was aroused among the peasants themselves, who as it is, do not care to leave their homes unless they are obliged to do so. That emigration is one of the possible radical methods of solving the land question is obvious. It is further obvious that if it is to be adopted a system of investigation into the suitability of places for emigration and likewise a system of means of communication must be organised. It is equally obvious that the State must not only furnish material aid but moral aid by furthering educational progress and the amelioration of general culture by every means at its disposal.

It is hardly necessary to say now that up to the present the State has acted in the contrary sense by every means at its disposal. There was a moment after the emancipation under Alexander II. when this was not so, and efforts towards general improvement were made; this epoch did not last long, and progress was definitively checked by the reactionary régime of Alexander III., which reached its culminating point under the reign of M. Plehve. That it is feasible to make for progress in Russia and that this is not a Utopian ideal is proved by the simple fact that in spite of all the obstacles created by the Government, schools, instituted by the Zemstva, have flourished, with the result that, roughly speaking, 40 per cent. of the younger generation in Russia can now read and write, whereas at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, when the Zemstva came into existence, 2 per cent. only could read and write.