Читать книгу The Economics of the Russian Village - Isaac A. Hourwich - Страница 4

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It seems now to be a fairly well established fact in science that at the dawn of the evolution of mankind the individual had not yet differentiated from the social aggregate. Archaic communism in the production of food and other necessaries, as well as in possession and consumption, is now, I imagine, universally recognized as the primitive form of social life. It is only during the higher stages of development that private ownership by individuals comes into existence; and private property in land was the latest to appear on the historical scene. The dissolution of the land community in Western Europe is a fact of comparatively very recent date. In Russia, where the process of evolution has been less rapid, we see this primeval institution preserved until to-day.

In Russia we do not find within historical times that tribal communism which Lewis H. Morgan met with among the American Indians. The Russian village community of historical times consists of a number of large families, often, yet not necessarily, of common ancestry, who possess the soil in common, but cultivate it by households. The ancient communal coöperation re-appears sporadically, upon various special occasions, in the form of the pómoch (help). Some householder invites his neighbors to help him in a certain work: to mow his meadow lot, to reap his field, to cut down wood for a new house he has undertaken to build, etc. This is considered as a reception tendered by the family to its neighbors, and different kinds of refreshments are prepared for the occasion. These constitute the only remuneration for the work done collectively by the guests. Of course, there is nothing compulsory in the custom, and no one is bound to answer the call in case he does not like to do so. On the other hand, the party benefited is under an obligation to appear at the call of all those who participated in the pómoch. This custom, which is now limited for the most part to extraordinary occasions and is more and more falling into disuse, apparently played a far more conspicuous part in former days, when rural settlements were scattered clearings in the midst of virgin forests, and pioneer work was constantly needed. Still even then it was but a social revival, hinting at a preceding epoch of closer communistic co-operation, yet at the same time pointing out the existing severance between the households of which the community was formed. In other words, the pómoch, being undoubtedly a revival of primeval communism, is at the same time a sign of the dissolution of communism into individual households.

However, it is essential to notice that the Russian household is not identical with the Roman family or its derivatives. The Roman paterfamilias is the absolute master of all living under his patria potestas; he is the unlimited owner of all property belonging to the household, even where such property is the product of the personal industry of particular members of the family. The modern family, on the other hand, is merely a union of individuals having their individual rights recognized by law, though sometimes not without certain limitations in favor of the head of the family. The Russian peasant family alone is a perfect communistic commonwealth. All the moveables belonging to the household, as well as its whole income, constitute the collective property of the family, but not of its head. The same holds good even of those parts of the Empire in which the village community disappeared long before the emancipation of the peasants. In Little Russia and White Russia, as elsewhere, the statute of 1861 recognized the rural institutions upheld by peasant common law. Thus the land was there allotted to the families, and it was subsequently reaffirmed by the Senate, in one of its interpretations, that the land does not belong to the head of the family, but does belong to the family as a whole.

Moreover, an old Russian family greatly resembled a community even in the number of its members. Mr. Krasnoperoff, in a paper which appeared some ten years ago in the Otechestvenniya Zapiski, described a family he met with in the province of Mohileff. The family numbered ninety-nine members, and was composed of a grandmother, with her children and married grandchildren, all of whom were living together and working for their own common benefit. Such households are, indeed, isolated exceptions at the present day, but they were universal in the past.

Thus ownership of land by the community without, and complete communism within the family, were the fundamental elements in the structure of the village at the dawn of Russian history.

The rise and growth of private property in land soon came in to restrict the domain of the village community.

In the early days of mankind coöperation is essential to success in the struggle for life which man is carrying on daily against his natural surroundings. Landholding, whether collective or individual, must be large enough to admit of coöperation. Therefore private ownership in land first appears in history in the form of large holdings. Now, so long as population is thin, and vacant land lies practically free to anybody, it would be useless to occupy large estates if there were no means of compelling the husbandman to labor in the landlord’s fields instead of for his own benefit. Indeed, private property in land in the early periods of history goes hand in hand with the personal dependence of the tiller of the soil.

In the Muscovite State we find two forms of individual landed property: patrimony (vottchina) or freehold, and fee (pomest’ye) or benefice.

While fee was an institution of public law, patrimony owed its origin to private law and to a more ancient epoch. Patrimonies were to be found in the Republic of Novgorod, and in some other States of the Russian Federation, before their conquest by the Great Princes of Muscovy, afterwards Czars of all the Russias. The rise of this form of property is intimately bound up with the growth of slavery in ancient Russia. Slavery, like patrimony, was also an institution of private law, arising from the transaction of loan. The payment of the debt was secured, as in the civil law (jus civile), by the person of the debtor. Unquestionably this was the only possible security in an historical epoch when landed property had no value, save when human labor was applied to it. As in Rome, war was the constant cause that put the peasant under the necessity of contracting loans. As in Rome, there could hardly be found two years of uninterrupted peace in the course of the first centuries of Russia’s history. Destruction, by force of arms and rapine, usually compelled the plundered peasant to alienate his liberty to the “better man” (vir bonus, καλὸς κἀγαθός) who furnished him with cattle, seed, and implements. The peasant sold himself either for a term of years, or for life, and in the course of time the state of serfdom became hereditary. The labor of these slaves (zakup, kabalniy holóp) was used by the creditors to cultivate their estates, or to reclaim new acres from the forest. Amidst the wilderness of primitive forests, such parcels of cultivated land had already a certain value which attracted settlers. Here we have the origin of patrimonies in Russia during the “period of federation and witenagemote.”

Left, however, as it was, to private intercourse and initiative, the spread of individual landed property, like the number of slaves, remained comparatively limited. It was only as political institutions that individual landholding and personal dependence of the peasant were to become the foundations of social life in Russia.

The fee was the virtual germ of Russian private property in land.

Not only in Russia, but also in many other countries, private property in land owed its origin to relations of public law. Public land (ager publicus) was primarily held by officers on the ground of, and for the purposes of their office as a benefice. In proportion as the offices became hereditary, and the relations growing out of administration of public affairs developed into personal dependence of the common people upon the office holders, the tenure of land by reason of office became hereditary, and subsequently developed into an institution of private law. The next step was in the direction of freeing the landholder from the duty of public service connected with the tenure of his land. Thus his possession became independent. On the other hand, the free ownership of land by the people was replaced, in the course of evolution, by dependent possession. And finally, with the abolition of the personal dependence of the peasant, his right to land expired.

Such was, taking a bird’s eye view, the evolution of private property in most European countries. In Russia the course was essentially the same.

Old republican and semi-republican Russia of “the period of federation and witenagemote” knew no firm government. The prince was elected and deposed by the people, and it was very difficult for him to hold his position for more than any single year amidst the dissensions of the hostile factions of turbulent citizens. Usually princes tramped their whole life long from one principality to another, attendants tramping with them. War was their chief business and war was also their chief source of income. Moreover, through a confiscation of the judicial functions by the prince, a part of the wergild paid by the convicted wrongdoer to the right party, found its way into the treasury of the prince to be distributed among his followers. No bond wedded the prince and his followers to the land until the nomadic elected prince was replaced by the Muscovite Great Prince and Lord of All the Russias. Struggle with the Tartar conquerors—a struggle that lasted for two centuries—furthered the growth of centralization and of monarchical authority, and the former free attendant of the prince became the servitor of his sovereign. The State in Russia has always been a self-sufficing entity, which claimed the services of everybody, without owing in return anything to anybody. And this still remains to-day the fundamental principle wherein Russian public law differs from constitutional law. If, perchance, the state engaged in suppressing crime, it was not for the sake of justice or defense to the people, but rather for fiscal considerations, or for the sake of the safety of the state, threatened by gangs of brigands and highway robbers. It was the duty of the “servitor” (sloozhiliy chelovek) to prosecute bandits, to defend the frontiers from invasion by nomadic tribes, and to appear in case of war among his sovereign’s troops with a number of armed men. To furnish the “gentleman” with the necessary means for the support of his detachment, and in general for the discharge of his office, he was granted a certain tract of land “in fee.” The peasant who settled upon this lot was bound to pay a certain tax (in kind) to the “gentleman” to whom the power of taxation was delegated by the State. However, it was no easy task to enforce the exact payment of the taxes, since the peasant could run away at any time he chose as soon as he found the payments becoming burdensome.

Indeed, even in modern Russia, wherever land is in abundance, agriculture is to a great extent a nomadic pursuit. A field is cultivated uninterruptedly for from two to three years, and the peasant then leaves it and turns to another fresh lot. It is only after a period of not less than twenty years that the peasant will perhaps return to the first lot. It may be, however, that he will change his place for an entirely new one.

In olden times the facilities for migration were the same as they now are in Siberia. This state of things gave rise to competition among the gentry, who vied with one another in cutting down the rate of payments exacted from the peasants. The gentry constantly complained of being unable to fulfil their duties toward the State so long as this self-willedness on the part of the peasants continued. In order to secure exact fulfilment by each of his duties toward the state, freedom of migration was first limited, and then gradually abolished. The free peasant became bound to the soil, glebæ adscriptus. Yet this dependence was based entirely upon public law. The peasant was made subject to the gentleman, not for the gentleman’s sake, but for the benefit of the state. The only restriction of civil rights imposed upon the peasant by his dependence was the prohibition of emigration; and even in that no distinction existed between the peasant and the gentleman, since the latter was also forbidden to quit his fee. Throughout the Muscovite period the peasant was considered as a citizen, and was protected by the state against abuses of power on the part of the gentleman. The latter was not even the owner of the land; it belonged to the state, or to the Czar, as the personification of the state. Land was allotted to the gentleman for service, and for lifetime only, and could escheat by the state for cause. Inasmuch, however, as the gentleman’s son also entered the service of the Czar, it became little by little a custom to transfer to the son his father’s fee. Thus the fee became hereditary.

Peter the Great effaced all the distinctions that were characteristic of the preceding epoch. By compelling every landholder to enter the service of the state, and by establishing a uniform law of inheritance for all real estate belonging to the nobility, he merged in one patrimonies and fees. On the other hand, by imposing the poll tax upon peasants, and by making the landholder responsible for the exact payment of this tax, he put slaves and serfs upon a common footing, and made the latter personally dependent upon the landlord. His successors restricted the civil rights of the peasants and took away from them the right to sue their masters. At the same time the latter were granted the right to exile their peasants to Siberia, and to sell them, even where such sale entailed the separation of the wife from her husband, of the child from its parents. On the other hand, after the time of Peter the Great, the duty of service was gradually relaxed, and at last definitively abolished by Peter III in 1762.

It was by this ukase that private property in land and serfdom were finally recognized in Russia as institutions of private law.[7] But immediately after the “Charter to the Nobility” was granted by Peter III, the question of emancipation began to agitate the peasants. Three generations were too short a period in which to implant in the minds of the peasantry the new principles brought into social relations by the St. Petersburg Emperors. The conservative mind of the peasant was wedded to the old customs of the Muscovite common law. He knew no Emperor; for him there was still a Czar, who owned all the lands of his country for the good of his people. The gentleman was bound to serve the Czar; the peasant was bound to provide the gentleman with the necessary means; hence bond serfdom and fee. And was the idea really so obsolete? Were not the gentlemen daily granted large estates for services they had rendered to the Czar? Now, since the Czar in his grace has freed the gentleman from service, there is no longer any ground upon which the gentleman can be justified in detaining the land in his possession, nor is there any reason for keeping the peasant in dependence upon the gentleman. Consequently “Land and Liberty!” (Zemlya ee Volya!) It is now plain enough why the nobility conspired to assassinate the Emperor Peter III Theodorovitch. After the “dear father” had narrowly escaped his fate, the lords declared him dead; but fortunately he succeeded at last, after eleven years of exile, in recruiting an army of loyal subjects to help him in taking lawful possession of his throne, usurped by his perfidious wife. The war over, the people will be graciously vouchsafed “Land and Liberty.”

This legend found its way readily into the minds of the peasants, who for a whole year, under the leadership of the rebellious Cossack Emilian Pugacheff, alias “Emperor Peter Theodorovitch,” held half Russia in their power. It would be, of course, a rash conclusion to seek to establish any immediate connection between the bloody uprising of 1773–1774 and the discussion of the question of emancipation in the “Commission for the Enactment of a New Code,” called by Catherine II. in 1767. Yet it is worth noticing that such a question did arise, and that the emancipation of the peasants was pleaded for by the representative of the Don Cossacks, who were shortly to lead the insurrection. And, indeed, many of those who represented the Cossacks in the commission were later on active in the civil war. The suppression of the latter led to the expansion of serfdom, since the “pension system” of that epoch consisted, of necessity, only in grants of “peasant souls.” Thus in the reign of Catherine II. about one million “state serfs” were given into the private possession of landlords, for military, or civil (or “personal”) merit.

The reigns of her successors were marked by an uninterrupted series of peasant uprisings, agrarian crimes, and half-measures on the part of the government to loosen the bonds of serfdom. At the same time, after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, abolitionist ideas began to win their way among the land-owning, upper classes. The insurrection of December 14th (26th), 1825, had among its chief purposes the abolition of serfdom. The disastrous termination of that insurrection did not stop the propaganda of the abolitionist ideas which reached even to the palace, through the famous Russian poet Zhukoffsky, instructor of Alexander II.

The political necessity of emancipation, as guaranteeing the safety of the state, was brought still farther home to the minds of the ruling classes by the general excitement among the peasantry which followed the Crimean war, and broke out in numberless riots of a most alarming character throughout the country. “We must free the peasants from above, before they begin to free themselves from below,”—these were the historical words addressed by Alexander II to the Assembly of the Nobility in Moscow, August 31st (September 12th), 1858. Yet such political farsightedness could hardly have developed, had not the economic conditions been ripe for the change. Indeed, after the Crimean war it became obvious to the government that Russia, with her old-fashioned methods of transportation, could play no prominent part in the “European concert.” Now it was perfectly evident that an extensive system of railways could not possibly be supported out of the resources of agriculture alone, in a country in which nine-tenths of the people were serfs, either of the state or of the landlords, and had to bear out of their scanty income the expenses of a large military state, and of an aristocracy. Industry and commerce were necessary for the maintenance of the state. The emancipation of the peasants was the scheme to attract domestic and foreign capital to industrial pursuits in Russia. By placing money in the hands of the landlords it was sought to promote the progress of agriculture, and the growth of industries intimately connected therewith. By setting at liberty twenty million serfs, who were the subjects of the landlords, wage-workers were created for industrial enterprises.

The economic significance of the reform of February 19th, (March 3d,) 1861, lies in the fact that, on the one hand, it completed the evolution of private property in land, and that, on the other hand, it effected at a single blow the expropriation of the peasantry on a large scale.

Before the emancipation anything like distinction between the land of the lord and that of the peasant existed on those estates on which the duties of the serf toward his master were discharged in compulsory labor. Yet even there the distinction was not clearly marked, for the peasants enjoyed the right of pasture in common with the lord, and were furnished a modicum of wood from the lord’s forest. The distinction, moreover, was not a rigid one, since the lord could, at his option, transform the corvée into tallage (taille)—compulsory labor into compulsory payments. The latter form prevailed on many estates. In such cases the lord enjoyed merely the legal ownership, Ober-Eigenthum (dominium ex jure Quiritium) while to the peasant belonged the real possession, Nutzeigenthum (possessio ex jure gentium). Now the severance of a tract of land from the fields held by the community transformed communal possession into private property of the gentleman. The owner who tilled the soil was transformed into a tenant or into a wage-laborer.

There was a party among the nobility at the time of the emancipation who would have liked to see a still more decided reform in the same direction. In compliance with the wishes of the members of this party it was accordingly proposed to transfer all the land into the private property of the noble, while leaving to the peasant merely his homestead (i.e. house, yard and garden). But, after consideration, this radical plan was abandoned, for fear lest it might prove seriously dangerous to the public peace.

Unquestionably, the principles in accordance with which the reform was carried out stood in striking contradiction to the aspirations of the peasants, who held fast to the idea expressed by the old saying: “We are yours, but the land is ours!” Hence general disappointment of the peasantry with the reform, which failed to grant the people “land” as well as “liberty.” Now, since the land is the Czar’s and has been unlawfully seized by the masters, can there be any doubt that the gentlemen and the officials have conspired together against the will of the Czar? We here arrive at the source of those wide-spread legends of land nationalization that were so popular with the peasants for a quarter of a century after the emancipation.

To obviate all incitement to acute outbreaks of popular discontent, the government, as far as possible, avoided drastic measures.

In order to meet the wishes of those who leaned toward the Irish system of landholding, the government satisfied itself with offering to every community the choice either of agreeing to pay the redemption tax for the normal lots, or of taking in lieu thereof the so called “donated lots” extending to one-fourth of the normal lots, and free from the redemption tax. At the same time these lots became at once the absolute property of the donees.

Similarly, the government did not proceed to an immediate assault upon agrarian communism, though considering the same as an obstacle to agricultural progress. Wherever communism was in existence, the land was allotted to the community as a whole. But a road was opened to the spontaneous and gradual dissolution of the community. The “homesteads,” i.e. the house, the yard and garden, were declared the property of the family. Further, the community was empowered to divide the field into private property, upon a vote of two-thirds of the householders. Finally every individual householder was granted the right of enclosing his lot, after having complied with certain formalities, and paid the whole amount of amortization. It was hoped that as soon as the way had been opened to private property, the latter would not fail to take the place of communism. These expectations were, however, fulfilled but in a comparatively meagre measure. The reason lay in the fact that the government could not make up its mind to break entirely with the old regime.

In order to smooth the opposition of the nobility to the emancipation of their serfs, the redemption of land was not made compulsory. The State undertook the part of middleman between the gentleman and the peasant, under certain normal conditions. But the agreement was to be made voluntarily between the parties. The gentleman alone was given the privilege of rendering the redemption compulsory at his own option, by making an abatement of one-fifth of the normal rate of installments. In case no such action was taken by him, and no mutual understanding could be reached, the peasant remained in a transitional state of dependence upon his former master. His obligation was to be discharged either in pecuniary payments or in forced labor. This state of moderated serfdom lasted throughout the reign of Alexander II., surnamed “the Liberator,” and was abolished in 1883 by a law ordering the compulsory settlement of the relations between the so-called “temporary obligors” and their masters.[8]

In so far as this state of dependence remained in existence, the destructive influence of the “Statute of Redemption” upon the rural community was suspended.[9]

Whatever may have been the effect of permitting the dependence of the peasant to be continued, the support offered to the community by the old fiscal system, which has remained up to this very day, was still more influential.

It would be idle to criticise the Russian financial system from the standpoint of justice in taxation. The law of self-preservation is the first law of all being. To cover her nine hundred million budget, official Russia has got simply to take money wherever it can be found. Now where can it be found in Russia? The State can tax either the producer or the consumer, or both. Where is the producer to be sought for purposes of taxation? Is it in industry, which is being fostered by means of bounties and prohibitive tariffs? Is it the noble landlord, for whom State mortgage banks are established, and State lotteries issued, whose solo notes are discounted by the State Bank, etc? Then there remains none but the peasant to pay the taxes. Should on the other hand the consumer be taxed, then again it is the 80 per cent. peasants who must pay the major part of the indirect taxes.[10] In a word, whether the burden weigh upon producer or consumer, it must needs be the Russian peasant to whom will fall the lion’s share—in paying the taxes. And truly the peasantry, like the “burghers,” are designated as a “taxable order,” but the burghers are too few to cut any figure as compared with the peasant.

What follows?

A great sensation was produced in 1877 by a book on Russian taxation by Prof. J. E. Janson, of the University of St. Petersburg.[11] On the strength of the Reports of the Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Agriculture in Russia, 1872, and of the Proceedings of the Commission on Taxation, he brought to light the startling fact that the amount of taxes paid by the peasant toward 1872 considerably exceeded the net income of his land.[12] This means that it did not pay for the peasant to own land, since he had to cover a part of the taxes from his wages, while, by deserting his plot, he would enjoy the whole amount of his wages with the exception of a small poll tax. And indeed many a peasant would be glad to run away from his farm, if he was only permitted to do so. But the fulfilment of the peasant’s obligation toward the State was secured by the curtailment of his personal liberty. In case of arrears he would get no passport, and no one is allowed in Russia to go farther from home than 30 versts (about 20 miles) without a passport, under penalty of being imprisoned and forwarded home by étape. Should, however, the peasant renounce his right of locomotion, then public sale of his homestead and personal effects, and corporal punishment[13] inevitably follow arrears in the payment of taxes. Moreover all the members of the community are responsible, jointly and severally, for the exact payment of the taxes assessed upon the community as a whole. Therefore wherever, and so long as, the taxes exceed the rent brought in by the land[14] the ancestral tenet of communal supremacy is emphatically observed, and the most scrupulous justice and equality are maintained in the distribution of the land.

The lots are strictly proportioned to the number of males in each family, or to that of the workers (from the ages of 15–18 to 55–60), or even to the number of “eaters”; democratic principles being so far lived up to as to efface all distinction between male and female “mouths.” The terms of distribution vary according to the kinds of land. Meadows are subdivided every summer. Arable is usually distributed at intervals of greater length. Yet, in the meantime, for some reason or other, land may become vacant, or fall to the disposal of the community. It often happens that some householder requests to be relieved of a part of his land on the ground of the decrease in the number of workers in his family, e.g., because his son has been enlisted in the army. At the same time there may be other families who are “strong,” i.e., well-off and numerous enough to pay the taxes for an additional tract of land. In such cases a partial subdivision between the households is made by the community. After a time, with the increase in the number of these partial subdivisions, the complexity and inequality of distribution necessitate a fresh general subdivision. The land is once more minutely redivided among the villagers. The optimistic enthusiast of the community would fancy that at last it stood firmly rooted in the soil, in spite of all unfavorable environments.

And yet, notwithstanding the strictest minuteness in the distribution of land, wherein the sovereignty of the mir over private interests is manifested, the equilibrium of the rural community must be defined as utterly unstable, since it rests upon such a shaky basis as over-taxation of the land. The economic development of Russia, however, tends to eliminate the disproportion between tax and income.

By taking one-half of the land out of the occupancy of the community, the government put the peasant under the necessity of seeking land or employment outside of his own farmstead. To secure to the landlords an abundant supply of farm hands, the emigration of the former serfs to districts where there was plenty of vacant land was so throttled with red tape that it was practically equivalent to prohibition.[15] Moreover, in 1866 the emancipation of the State peasants brought about the repeal of the old law, which encouraged emigration, under certain conditions, through the support of the State. As opposed to this the “Statute of the peasants freed from bond serfdom,” which was now to be applied to the former State peasant, brought with it a new restriction of his personal rights.

The peasants now found themselves tied to the place in which they had been born. The increased demand for land could not but react upon the peasants’ plots, by raising the rent that they brought, and so neutralizing the effects of over-taxation. The fiscal influence which tends to counteract the dissolution of the village community is thus passing away.