HOW THE COMMUNE HAS BEEN PRESERVED, AND WHAT IT IS TO EFFECT IN THE
FUTURE
Sweeping Reforms after the Crimean War--Protest Against the Laissez
Faire Principle--Fear of the Proletariat--English and Russian Methods of
Legislation Contrasted--Sanguine Expectations--Evil Consequences of
the Communal System--The Commune of the Future--Proletariat of the
Towns--The Present State of Things Merely Temporary.
The reader is probably aware that immediately after the Crimean War
Russia was subjected to a series of sweeping reforms, including the
emancipation of the serfs and the creation of a new system of local
self-government, and he may naturally wonder how it came to pass that
a curious, primitive institution like the rural Commune succeeded in
weathering the bureaucratic hurricane. This strange phenomena I now
proceed to explain, partly because the subject is in itself interesting,
and partly because I hope thereby to throw some light on the peculiar
intellectual condition of the Russian educated classes.
When it became evident, in 1857, that the serfs were about to be
emancipated, it was at first pretty generally supposed that the rural
Commune would be entirely abolished, or at least radically modified. At
that time many Russians were enthusiastic, indiscriminate admirers of
English institutions, and believed, in common with the orthodox school
of political economists, that England had acquired her commercial and
industrial superiority by adopting the principle of individual liberty
and unrestricted competition, or, as French writers term it, the
"laissez faire" principle. This principle is plainly inconsistent with
the rural Commune, which compels the peasantry to possess land, prevents
an enterprising peasant from acquiring the land of his less enterprising
neighbours, and places very considerable restrictions on the freedom of
action of the individual members. Accordingly it was assumed that the
rural Commune, being inconsistent with the modern spirit of progress,
would find no place in the new regime of liberty which was about to be
inaugurated.
No sooner had these ideas been announced in the Press than they
called forth strenuous protests. In the crowd of protesters were
two well-defined groups. On the one hand there were the so-called
Slavophils, a small band of patriotic, highly educated Moscovites, who
were strongly disposed to admire everything specifically Russian, and
who habitually refused to bow the knee to the wisdom of Western Europe.
These gentlemen, in a special organ which they had recently founded,
pointed out to their countrymen that the Commune was a venerable and
peculiarly Russian institution, which had mitigated in the past the
baneful influence of serfage, and would certainly in the future confer
inestimable benefits on the emancipated peasantry. The other group was
animated by a very different spirit. They had no sympathy with national
peculiarities, and no reverence for hoary antiquity. That the Commune
was specifically Russian or Slavonic, and a remnant of primitive
times, was in their eyes anything but a recommendation in its favour.
Cosmopolitan in their tendencies, and absolutely free from all
archaeological sentimentality, they regarded the institution from
the purely utilitarian point of view. They agreed, however, with the
Slavophils in thinking that its preservation would have a beneficial
influence on the material and moral welfare of the peasantry.
For the sake of convenience it is necessary to designate this latter
group by some definite name, but I confess I have some difficulty in
making a choice. I do not wish to call these gentlemen Socialists,
because many people habitually and involuntarily attach a stigma to
the word, and believe that all to whom the term is applied must be
first-cousins to the petroleuses. To avoid misconceptions of this kind,
it will be well to designate them simply by the organ which most
ably represented their views, and to call them the adherents of The
Contemporary.
The Slavophils and the adherents of The Contemporary, though differing
widely from each other in many respects, had the same immediate object
in view, and accordingly worked together. With great ingenuity they
contended that the Communal system of land tenure had much greater
advantages, and was attended with much fewer inconveniences, than
people generally supposed. But they did not confine themselves to these
immediate practical advantages, which had very little interest for
the general reader. The writers in The Contemporary explained that the
importance of the rural Commune lies, not in its actual condition, but
in its capabilities of development, and they drew, with prophetic eye,
most attractive pictures of the happy rural Commune of the future. Let
me give here, as an illustration, one of these prophetic descriptions:
"Thanks to the spread of primary and technical education the peasants
have become well acquainted with the science of agriculture, and are
always ready to undertake in common the necessary improvements. They no
longer exhaust the soil by exporting the grain, but sell merely certain
technical products containing no mineral ingredients. For this purpose
the Communes possess distilleries, starch-works, and the like, and the
soil thereby retains its original fertility. The scarcity induced by the
natural increase of the population is counteracted by improved methods
of cultivation. If the Chinese, who know nothing of natural science,
have succeeded by purely empirical methods in perfecting agriculture to
such an extent that a whole family can support itself on a few square
yards of land, what may not the European do with the help of chemistry,
botanical physiology, and the other natural sciences?"
Coming back from the possibilities of the future to the actualities of
the present, these ingenious and eloquent writers pointed out that
in the rural Commune, Russia possessed a sure preventive against the
greatest evil of West-European social organisation, the Proletariat.
Here the Slavophils could strike in with their favourite refrain about
the rotten social condition of Western Europe; and their temporary
allies, though they habitually scoffed at the Slavophil jeremiads, had
no reason for the moment to contradict them. Very soon the Proletariat
became, for the educated classes, a species of bugbear, and the reading
public were converted to the doctrine that the Communal institutions
should be preserved as a means of excluding the monster from Russia.
This fear of what is vaguely termed the Proletariat is still frequently
to be met with in Russia, and I have often taken pains to discover
precisely what is meant by the term. I cannot, however, say that my
efforts have been completely successful. The monster seems to be as
vague and shadowy as the awful forms which Milton placed at the gate of
the infernal regions. At one moment he seems to be simply our old enemy
Pauperism, but when we approach a little nearer we find that he
expands to colossal dimensions, so as to include all who do not
possess inalienable landed property. In short, he turns out to be, on
examination, as vague and undefinable as a good bugbear ought to be; and
this vagueness contributed probably not a little to his success.
The influence which the idea of the Proletariat exercised on the public
mind and on the legislation at the time of the Emancipation is a
very notable fact, and well worthy of attention, because it helps to
illustrate a point of difference between Russians and Englishmen.
Englishmen are, as a rule, too much occupied with the multifarious
concerns of the present to look much ahead into the distant future. We
profess, indeed, to regard with horror the maxim, Apres nous le deluge!
and we should probably annihilate with our virtuous indignation any one
who should boldly profess the principle. And yet we often act almost as
if we were really partisans of that heartless creed. When called upon
to consider the interests of the future generations, we declared
that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and stigmatise as
visionaries and dreamers all who seek to withdraw our attention from the
present. A modern Cassandra who confidently predicts the near exhaustion
of our coal-fields, or graphically describes a crushing national
disaster that must some day overtake us, may attract some public
attention; but when we learn that the misfortune is not to take place in
our time, we placidly remark that future generations must take care
of themselves, and that we cannot reasonably be expected to bear their
burdens. When we are obliged to legislate, we proceed in a cautious,
tentative way, and are quite satisfied with any homely, simple remedies
that common sense and experience may suggest, without taking the trouble
to inquire whether the remedy adopted is in accordance with scientific
theories. In short, there is a certain truth in those "famous prophetick
pictures" spoken of by Stillingfleet, which "represent the fate of
England by a mole, a creature blind and busy, continually working under
ground."
In Russia we find the opposite extreme. There reformers have been
trained, not in the arena of practical politics, but in the school of
political speculation. As soon, therefore, as they begin to examine
any simple matter with a view to legislation, it at once becomes
a "question," and flies up into the region of political and social
science. Whilst we have been groping along an unexplored path, the
Russians have--at least in recent times--been constantly mapping out,
with the help of foreign experience, the country that lay before them,
and advancing with gigantic strides according to the newest political
theories. Men trained in this way cannot rest satisfied with homely
remedies which merely alleviate the evils of the moment. They wish to
"tear up evil by the roots," and to legislate for future generations as
well as for themselves.
This tendency was peculiarly strong at the time of the Emancipation. The
educated classes were profoundly convinced that the system of Nicholas
I. had been a mistake, and that a new and brighter era was about to dawn
upon the country. Everything had to be reformed. The whole social and
political edifice had to be reconstructed on entirely new principles.
Let us imagine the position of a man who, having no practical
acquaintance with building, suddenly finds himself called upon to
construct a large house, containing all the newest appliances for
convenience and comfort. What will his first step be? Probably he will
proceed at once to study the latest authorities on architecture and
construction, and when he has mastered the general principles he will
come down gradually to the details. This is precisely what the Russians
did when they found themselves called upon to reconstruct the political
and social edifice. They eagerly consulted the most recent English,
French, and German writers on social and political science, and here it
was that they made the acquaintance of the Proletariat.
People who read books of travel without ever leaving their own country
are very apt to acquire exaggerated notions regarding the hardships
and dangers of uncivilised life. They read about savage tribes, daring
robbers, ferocious wild beasts, poisonous snakes, deadly fevers, and the
like; and they cannot but wonder how a human being can exist for a week
among such dangers. But if they happen thereafter to visit the countries
described, they discover to their surprise that, though the descriptions
may not have been exaggerated, life under such conditions is much easier
than they supposed. Now the Russians who read about the Proletariat were
very much like the people who remain at home and devour books of travel.
They gained exaggerated notions, and learned to fear the Proletariat
much more than we do, who habitually live in the midst of it. Of course
it is quite possible that their view of the subject is truer than ours,
and that we may some day, like the people who live tranquilly on the
slopes of a volcano, be rudely awakened from our fancied security. But
this is an entirely different question. I am at present not endeavouring
to justify our habitual callousness with regard to social dangers,
but simply seeking to explain why the Russians, who have little or no
practical acquaintance with pauperism, should have taken such elaborate
precautions against it.
But how can the preservation of the Communal institutions lead to this
"consummation devoutly to be wished," and how far are the precautions
likely to be successful?
Those who have studied the mysteries of social science have generally
come to the conclusion that the Proletariat has been formed chiefly by
the expropriation of the peasantry or small land-holders, and that its
formation might be prevented, or at least retarded, by any system of
legislation which would secure the possession of land for the peasants
and prevent them from being uprooted from the soil. Now it must be
admitted that the Russian Communal system is admirably adapted for this
purpose. About one-half of the arable land has been reserved for the
peasantry, and cannot be encroached on by the great landowners or the
capitalists, and every adult peasant, roughly speaking, has a right to
a share of this land. When I have said that the peasantry compose about
five-sixths of the population, and that it is extremely difficult for
a peasant to sever his connection with the rural Commune, it will be at
once evident that, if the theories of social philosophers are correct,
and if the sanguine expectations entertained in many quarters regarding
the permanence of the present Communal institutions are destined to be
realised, there is little or no danger of a numerous Proletariat being
formed, and the Russians are justified in maintaining, as they often do,
that they have successfully solved one of the most important and most
difficult of social problems.
But is there any reasonable chance of these sanguine expectations being
realised?
This is, doubtless, a most complicated and difficult question, but it
cannot be shirked. However sceptical we may be with regard to social
panaceas of all sorts, we cannot dismiss with a few hackneyed phrases a
gigantic experiment in social science involving the material and moral
welfare of many millions of human beings. On the other hand, I do not
wish to exhaust the reader's patience by a long series of multifarious
details and conflicting arguments. What I propose to do, therefore, is
to state in a few words the conclusions at which I have arrived, after a
careful study of the question in all its bearings, and to indicate in a
general way how I have arrived at these conclusions.
If Russia were content to remain a purely agricultural country of
the Sleepy Hollow type, and if her Government were to devote all its
energies to maintaining economic and social stagnation, the rural
Commune might perhaps prevent the formation of a large Proletariat in
the future, as it has tended to prevent it for centuries in the past.
The periodical redistributions of the Communal land would secure to
every family a portion of the soil, and when the population became too
dense, the evils arising from inordinate subdivision of the land
might be obviated by a carefully regulated system of emigration to
the outlying, thinly populated provinces. All this sounds very well
in theory, but experience is proving that it cannot be carried out in
practice. In Russia, as in Western Europe, the struggle for life, even
among the conservative agricultural classes, is becoming yearly more
and more intense, and is producing both the desire and the necessity for
greater freedom of individual character and effort, so that each man may
make his way in the world according to the amount of his intelligence,
energy, spirit of enterprise, and tenacity of purpose. Whatever
institutions tend to fetter the individual and maintain a dead level
of mediocrity have little chance of subsisting for any great length of
time, and it must be admitted that among such institutions the rural
Commune in its present form occupies a prominent place. All its members
must possess, in principle if not always in practice, an equal share of
the soil and must practice the same methods of agriculture, and when a
certain inequality has been created by individual effort it is in great
measure wiped out by a redistribution of the Communal land.
Now, I am well aware that in practice the injustice and inconveniences
of the system, being always tempered and corrected by ingenious
compromises suggested by long experience, are not nearly so great as the
mere theorist might naturally suppose; but they are, I believe, quite
great enough to prevent the permanent maintenance of the institution,
and already there are ominous indications of the coming change, as I
shall explain more fully when I come to deal with the consequences of
serf-emancipation. On the other hand there is no danger of a sudden,
general abolition of the old system. Though the law now permits the
transition from Communal to personal hereditary tenure, even the
progressive enterprising peasants are slow to avail themselves of the
permission; and the reason I once heard given for this conservative
tendency is worth recording. A well-to-do peasant who had been in the
habit of manuring his land better than his neighbours, and who was,
consequently, a loser by the existing system, said to me: "Of course I
want to keep the allotment I have got. But if the land is never again
to be divided my grandchildren may be beggars. We must not sin against
those who are to come after us." This unexpected reply gave me food
for reflection. Surely those muzhiks who are so often accused of being
brutally indifferent to moral obligations must have peculiar deep-rooted
moral conceptions of their own which exercise a great influence on their
daily life. A man who hesitates to sin against his grandchildren still
unborn, though his conceptions of the meum and the tuum in the present
may be occasionally a little confused, must possess somewhere deep down
in his nature a secret fund of moral feeling of a very respectable kind.
Even among the educated classes in Russia the way of looking at these
matters is very different from ours. We should naturally feel inclined
to applaud, encourage, and assist the peasants who show energy and
initiative, and who try to rise above their fellows. To the Russian
this seems at once inexpedient and immoral. The success of the few, he
explains, is always obtained at the expense of the many, and generally
by means which the severe moralist cannot approve of. The rich peasants,
for example, have gained their fortune and influence by demoralising
and exploiting their weaker brethren, by committing all manner of
illegalities, and by bribing the local authorities. Hence they are
styled Miroyedy (Commune-devourers) or Kulaki (fists), or something
equally uncomplimentary. Once this view is adopted, it follows logically
that the Communal institutions, in so far as they form a barrier to the
activity of such persons, ought to be carefully preserved. This idea
underlies nearly all the arguments in favour of the Commune, and
explains why they are so popular. Russians of all classes have, in fact,
a leaning towards socialistic notions, and very little sympathy with our
belief in individual initiative and unrestricted competition.
Even if it be admitted that the Commune may effectually prevent the
formation of an agricultural Proletariat, the question is thereby
only half answered. Russia aspires to become a great industrial and
commercial country, and accordingly her town population is rapidly
augmenting. We have still to consider, then, how the Commune affects
the Proletariat of the towns. In Western Europe the great centres of
industry have uprooted from the soil and collected in the towns a great
part of the rural population. Those who yielded to this attractive
influence severed all connection with their native villages, became
unfit for field labour, and were transformed into artisans or
factory-workers. In Russia this transformation could not easily take
place. The peasant might work during the greater part of his life in
the towns, but he did not thereby sever his connection with his native
village. He remained, whether he desired it or not, a member of the
Commune, possessing a share of the Communal land, and liable for a share
of the Communal burdens. During his residence in the town his wife
and family remained at home, and thither he himself sooner or
later returned. In this way a class of hybrids--half-peasants,
half-artisans--has been created, and the formation of a town Proletariat
has been greatly retarded.
The existence of this hybrid class is commonly cited as a beneficent
result of the Communal institutions. The artisans and factory labourers,
it is said, have thus always a home to which they can retire when thrown
out of work or overtaken by old age, and their children are brought
up in the country, instead of being reared among the debilitating
influences of overcrowded cities. Every common labourer has, in
short, by this ingenious contrivance, some small capital and a country
residence.
In the present transitional state of Russian society this peculiar
arrangement is at once natural and convenient, but amidst its advantages
it has many serious defects. The unnatural separation of the artisan
from his wife and family leads to very undesirable results, well known
to all who are familiar with the details of peasant life in the northern
provinces. And whatever its advantages and defects may be, it cannot be
permanently retained. At the present time native industry is still in
its infancy. Protected by the tariff from foreign competition, and too
few in number to produce a strong competition among themselves, the
existing factories can give to their owners a large revenue without any
strenuous exertion. Manufacturers can therefore allow themselves many
little liberties, which would be quite inadmissible if the price of
manufactured goods were lowered by brisk competition. Ask a Lancashire
manufacturer if he could allow a large portion of his workers to go
yearly to Cornwall or Caithness to mow a field of hay or reap a few
acres of wheat or oats! And if Russia is to make great industrial
progress, the manufacturers of Moscow, Lodz, Ivanovo, and Shui will
some day be as hard pressed as are those of Bradford and Manchester. The
invariable tendency of modern industry, and the secret of its progress,
is the ever-increasing division of labour; and how can this principle be
applied if the artisans insist on remaining agriculturists?
The interests of agriculture, too, are opposed to the old system.
Agriculture cannot be expected to make progress, or even to be tolerably
productive, if it is left in great measure to women and children. At
present it is not desirable that the link which binds the factory-worker
or artisan with the village should be at once severed, for in
the neighbourhood of the large factories there is often no proper
accommodation for the families of the workers, and agriculture, as at
present practised, can be carried on successfully though the Head of
the Household happens to be absent. But the system must be regarded as
simply temporary, and the disruption of large families--a phenomenon
of which I have already spoken--renders its application more and more
difficult.