class="smcap">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

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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.”