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.