not but hate you from the bottom of their souls, and could not help
wishing to revenge themselves on you. And you know there are tens of
millions of them, and only some thousands of you. But what do they
do?... Why, instead of crushing you as useless and harmful reptiles,
they continue to repay your evil with good, and live their laborious
and reasonable, though hard life, patiently biding the day when you
will become conscious of your sin and will amend your ways. But
instead of that, what do you do? From the height of your refined,
self-confident immorality, you deign to stoop to those 'depraved,
coarse people.' You enlighten them, and play the benefactor to them;
that is to say, with the means supplied to you by their labour, you
inoculate them with your depravity, and blame, correct, and best of all
'punish' them, as unreasoning or vicious infants bite the breasts that
feed them.
"Yes, look at yourselves, and consider what you are and what they are!
Realise that they alone live, while you, with your Doúmas, Ministries,
Synods, Academies, Universities, Conservatoires, Law Courts, armies,
and all such stupidities and nastinesses, are but playing at life, and
spoiling it for yourselves and others. They, the people, are alive.
They are the tree, and you are harmful growths--fungi on the plant.
Realise, then, all your insignificance and their grandeur! Understand
your sin, and try to repent, and at all costs set the people free...."
"How well he speaks!" thought I. "Can it be a dream?"
And as I thought that, I awoke.
This dream set me again thinking about the land question: a
question of which those who live constantly in the country, among a
poverty-stricken agricultural peasant population, cannot help thinking.
I know I have often written about it; but under the influence of that
dream, even at the risk of repeating myself, I once more felt the need
to express myself. _Carthago delenda est._ As long as people's attitude
towards private property in land remains unchanged, the cruelty,
madness and evil of this form of the enslavement of some men by others,
cannot be pointed out too frequently.
People say that land is property, and they say this because the
Government recognises private property in land. But fifty years ago the
Government upheld private property in human beings; yet a time came
when it was admitted that human beings cannot be private property,
and the Government ceased to hold them to be property. So it will be
with property in land. The Government now upholds that property, and
protects it by its power; but a day will come when the Government will
cease to acknowledge this kind of property, and will abolish it. The
Government will have to abolish it, because private property in land
is just such an injustice as property in men--serfdom--used to be. The
difference lies only in the fact that serfdom was a direct, definite
slavery, while land-slavery is indirect and indefinite. Then Peter was
John's slave, whereas now Peter is the slave of some person unknown,
but certainly of him who owns the land Peter requires in order to
feed himself and his family. And not only is land-slavery as unjust
and cruel a slavery as serfdom used to be, it is even harder on the
slaves, and more criminal on the part of the slave-holders. For under
serfdom--if not from sympathy, then at least from self-interest--the
owner was obliged to see to it that his serf did not wither away and
die of want, but to the best of his ability and understanding he looked
after his slaves' morality. Now the landowner cares nothing if his
landless slave withers away or becomes demoralised; for he knows that
however many men die or become depraved at his work, he will always be
able to find workmen.
The injustice and cruelty of the new, present-day
slavery--land-slavery--is so evident, and the condition of the slaves
is everywhere so hard, that one would have expected this new slavery
to have been recognised by this time as out of date, just as serfdom
was admittedly out of date half a century ago; and it should, one would
have thought, have been abolished, as serfdom was abolished.
"But," it is said, "property in land cannot be abolished, for it
would be impossible to divide equally among all the labourers and
non-labourers the advantages given by land of different qualities."
But that is not true. To abolish property in land, no distribution of
land is necessary.
Just as, when serfdom was abolished, no distribution of the people
liberated was necessary, but all that was needed was the abolition of
the law that upheld serfdom, so with the abolition of private property
in land: no distribution of land is needed, but only the abolition of
the law sanctioning private property in land. And as when serfdom was
abolished, the serfs of their own accord settled down as best suited
them, so when private property in land is abolished, people will find
a way of sharing the land among themselves so that all may have equal
advantage from it. How this will be arranged, whether by Henry George's
Single-Tax system, or in some other way, we cannot foresee. But it is
certain that the Government need only cease to uphold by force the
obviously unjust and oppressive rights of property in land, and the
people, released from those restrictions, will always find means of
apportioning the land by common consent, in such a way that everyone
will have an equal share of the benefits the use of the land confers.
It is only necessary for the majority of land-owners--that is,
slave-owners--to understand (as they did in the matter of serfdom)
that property in land is as hard on the present-day slaves, and as
great an iniquity on the part of the slave-owners, as serfdom was; and,
having understood that, it is only necessary for them to impress on the
Government the necessity of repealing the laws sanctioning property in
land--that is, land-slavery. One would have thought that, as in the
'fifties, the best members of society (chiefly the serf-owning nobles
themselves), having understood the criminality of their position,
explained to the Government the necessity for abolishing their
evidently out-of-date and immoral rights, and serfdom was abolished,
so it should be now with regard to private property in land, which is
land-slavery.
But strange to say, the present slave-owners, the landed proprietors,
not only fail to see the criminality of their position, and do not
impress on the Government the necessity of abolishing land-slavery, but
on the contrary they consciously and unconsciously, by all manner of
means, blind themselves and their slaves to the criminality of their
position.
The reasons of this are: first, that serfdom in the 'fifties, being
the plain, downright enslavement of man by man, ran too clearly
counter to religious and moral feeling; while land-slavery is not a
direct, immediate slavery, but is a form of slavery more hidden from
the slaves, and especially from the slave-owners, by complicated
governmental, social and economic institutions. And the second reason
is that, while in the days of serfdom only one class were slave-owners,
all classes, except the most numerous one--consisting of peasants who
have too little land: labourers and working men--are slave-owners now.
Nowadays nobles, merchants, officials, manufacturers, professors,
teachers, authors, musicians, painters, rich peasants, rich men's
servants, well-paid artisans, electricians, mechanics, etc., are all
slave-owners of the peasants who have insufficient land, and of the
unskilled workmen who--apparently as a result of most varied causes,
but in reality as a result of one cause alone (the appropriation of
land by the landed proprietors)--are obliged to give their labour and
even their lives to those who possess the advantages land affords.
These two reasons--that the new slavery is less evident than the old,
and that the new slave-owners are much more numerous than the old
ones--account for the fact that the slave-owners of our day do not see,
and do not admit, the cruelty and criminality of their position, and do
not free themselves from it.
The slave-owners of our day not only do not admit that their position
is criminal, and do not try to escape from it, but are quite sure that
property in land is a necessary institution, essential to the social
order, and that the wretched condition of the working classes--which
they cannot help noticing--results from most varied causes, but
certainly not from the recognition of some people's right to own land
as private property.
This opinion of land-owning, and of the causes of the wretched
condition of the labourers, is so well established in all the leading
countries of the Christian world--France, England, Germany, America,
etc.--that with very rare exceptions it never occurs to their public
men to look in the right direction for the cause of the wretched
condition of the workers.
That is so in Europe and America; but one would have expected that
for us Russians, with our hundred million peasant population who deny
the principle of private ownership in land, and with our enormous
tracts of land, and with the almost religious desire of our people for
agricultural life, an answer very different to the general European
answer to questions as to the causes of the distress among the workers,
and as to the means of bettering their position, would naturally
present itself.
One would think that we Russians might understand that if we really
are concerned about, and desire to improve, the position of the
people and to free them from the aggravating and demoralising fetters
with which they are bound, the means to do this are indicated both
by common-sense and by the voice of the people, and are simply--the
abolition of private property in land, that is to say, the abolition of
land-slavery.
But, strange to relate, in Russian society, occupied with questions
of the improvement of the condition or the working classes, there is
no suggestion of this one, natural, simple and self-evident means
of improving their condition. We Russians, though our peasants'
outlook on the land question is probably centuries ahead of the rest
of Europe, can devise nothing better for the improvement of our
people's condition than to establish among ourselves, on the European
model, Doúmas, Councils, Ministries, Courts, Zémstvos, Universities,
Extension Lectures, Academies, elementary schools, fleets, sub-marines,
air-ships, and many other of the queerest things quite foreign to and
unnecessary for the people, and we do not do the one thing that is
demanded by religion, morality, and common-sense, as well as by the
whole of the peasantry.
Nor is this all. While arranging the fate of our people, who do not
and never did acknowledge land-ownership, we, imitating Europe, try in
all sorts of cunning ways, and by deception, bribery, and even force,
to accustom them to the idea of property in land--that is to say, we
try to deprave them and to destroy their consciousness of the truth
they have held for ages, and which sooner or later will certainly be
acknowledged by the whole human race: the truth that all who live on
the earth cannot but have an equal right to its use.
These efforts to inoculate the people with the idea of landed
property that is so foreign to them, are unceasingly made, with great
perseverance and zeal by the Government, and consciously or for the
most part unconsciously, from an instinct of self-preservation, by all
the slave-holders of our time. And the slave-holders of our time are
not the land-owners alone, but are all those who, as a result of the
people being deprived of the land, enjoy power over them.
Most strenuous efforts are made to deprave the people; but, thank God!
it may be safely said that till now all those efforts have only had an
effect on the smallest and worst part of Russia's peasant population.
The many-millioned majority of Russian workmen who hold but little
land and live--not the depraved, parasitic life of the slave-owners,
but their own reasonable, hard-working lives--do not yield to those
efforts; because for them the solution of the land question is not
one of personal advantage, as it is regarded by all the different
slave-owners of to-day. For the enormous majority of peasants, the
solution of that problem is not arrived at by mutually contradictory
economic theories that spring up to-day and to-morrow are forgotten,
but is found in the one truth, which is realised by them, and always
has been and is realised by all reasonable men the world over,--the
truth that all men are brothers and have therefore all an equal right
to all the blessings of the world and, among the rest, to the most
necessary of all rights--namely, the equal right of all to the use of
the land.
Living in this truth, an enormous majority of the peasants attach no
importance to all the wretched measures adopted by the Government
about this or that alteration of the laws of land-ownership, for they
know that there is only one solution to the land question--the total
abolition of private property in land, and of land-slavery. And,
knowing this, they quietly await their day, which sooner or later must
come.
SINGING IN THE VILLAGE
Voices and an accordion sounded as if close by, though through the mist
nobody could be seen. It was a work-day morning, and I was surprised to
hear music.
"Oh, it's the recruits' leave-taking," thought I, remembering that I
had heard something a few days before about five men being drawn from
our village. Involuntarily attracted by the merry song, I went in the
direction whence it proceeded.
As I approached the singers, the sound of song and accordion suddenly
stopped. The singers, that is the lads who were leave-taking, entered
the double-fronted brick cottage belonging to the father of one of
them. Before the door stood a small group of women, girls, and children.
While I was finding out whose sons were going, and why they had entered
that cottage, the lads themselves, accompanied by their mothers and
sisters, came out at the door. There were five of them: four bachelors
and one married man. Our village is near the town where nearly all
these conscripts had worked. They were dressed town-fashion, evidently
wearing their best clothes: peajackets, new caps, and high, showy
boots. Conspicuous among them was a young fellow, well built though not
tall, with a sweet, merry, expressive face, a small beard and moustache
just beginning to sprout, and bright hazel eyes. As he came out, he at
once took a big, expensive-looking accordion that was hanging over his
shoulders and, having bowed to me, started playing the merry tune of
"Bárynya," running his fingers nimbly over the keys and keeping exact
time, as he moved with rhythmic step jauntily down the road.
Beside him walked a thick-set, fair-haired lad, also of medium height.
He looked gaily from side to side, and sang second with spirit, in
harmony with the first singer. He was the married one. These two
walked ahead of the other three, who were also well dressed, and not
remarkable in any way except that one of them was tall.
Together with the crowd I followed the lads. All their songs were
merry, and no expression of grief was heard while the procession was
going along; but as soon as we came to the next house at which the
lads were to be treated, the lamentations of the women began. It was
difficult to make out what they were saying; only a word here and there
could be distinguished: "death ... father and mother ... native land
..."; and after every verse, the woman who led the chanting took a deep
breath, and burst out into long-drawn moans, followed by hysterical
laughter. The women were the mothers and sisters of the conscripts.
Beside the lamentations of these relatives, one heard the admonitions
of their friends.
"Now then, Matryóna, that's enough! You must be tired out," I heard one
woman say, consoling another who was lamenting.
The lads entered the cottage. I remained outside, talking with a
peasant acquaintance, Vasíly Oréhof, a former pupil of mine. His son,
one of the five, was the married man who had been singing second as he
went along.
"Well," I said, "it is a pity!"
"What's to be done? Pity or not, one has to serve."
And he told me of his domestic affairs. He had three sons: the eldest
was living at home, the second was now being taken, and a third (who,
like the second, had gone away to work) was contributing dutifully to
the support of the home. The one who was leaving had evidently not sent
home much.
"He has married a townswoman. His wife is not fit for our work. He is a
lopped-off branch and thinks only of keeping himself. To be sure it's a
pity, but it can't be helped!"
While we were talking, the lads came out into the street, and the
lamentations, shrieks, laughter, and adjurations recommenced. After
standing about for some five minutes, the procession moved on with
songs and accordion accompaniment. One could not help marvelling at the
energy and spirit of the player, as he beat time accurately, stamped
his foot, stopped short, and then after a pause again took up the
melody most merrily, exactly on the right beat, while he gazed around
with his kind, hazel eyes. Evidently he had a real and great talent for
music.
I looked at him, and (so at least it seemed to me) he felt abashed when
he met my eyes, and with a twitch of his brows he turned away, and
again burst out with even more spirit than before. When we reached the
fifth and last of the cottages, the lads entered, and I followed them.
All five of them were made to sit round a table covered with a cloth,
on which were bread and vódka. The host, the man I had been talking to,
who was now to take leave of his married son, poured out the vódka and
handed it round. The lads hardly drank at all (at most a quarter of a
glass) or even handed it back after just raising it to their lips. The
hostess cut some bread, and served slices round to eat with the vódka.
While I was looking at the lads, a woman, dressed in clothes that
seemed to me strange and incongruous, got down from the top of the
oven, close to where I sat. She wore a light green dress (silk, I
think) with fashionable trimmings, and high-heeled boots. Her fair hair
was arranged in quite the modern style, like a large round cap, and she
wore big, ring-shaped, gold earrings. Her face was neither sad nor
cheerful, but looked as if she were offended.
After getting down, she went out into the passage, clattering with the
heels of her new boots and paying no heed to the lads. All about this
woman--her clothing, the offended expression of her face, and above
all her earrings--was so foreign to the surroundings that I could not
understand how she had come to be on the top of Vasíly Oréhof's oven. I
asked a woman sitting near me who she was.
"Vasíly's daughter-in-law; she has been a housemaid," was the answer.
The host began offering vódka a third time, but the lads refused, rose,
said grace, thanked the hosts, and went out.
In the street, the lamentations recommenced at once. The first to raise
her voice was a very old woman with a bent back. She lamented in such a
peculiarly piteous voice, and wailed so, that the women kept soothing
the sobbing, staggering old creature, and supported her by her elbows.
"Who is she?" I inquired.
"Why, it's his granny; Vasíly's mother, that is."
The old woman burst into hysterical laughter and fell into the arms
of the women who supported her, and just then the procession started
again, and again the accordion and the merry voices struck up their
tune. At the end of the village the procession was overtaken by the
carts which were to carry the conscripts to the District Office. The
weeping and wailing stopped. The accordion-player, getting more and
more elated, bending his head to one side and resting on one foot,
turned out the toes of the other and stamped with it, while his fingers
produced brilliant _fioritures_, and exactly at the right instant
the bold, high, merry tones of his song, and the second of Vasíly's
son, again chimed in. Old and young, and especially the children who
surrounded the crowd, and I with them, fixed their eyes admiringly on
the singer.
"He is clever, the rascal!" said one of the peasants.
"'Sorrow weeps, and sorrow sings!'" replied another.
At that moment one of the young fellows whom we were seeing off--the
tall one--came up with long, energetic strides, and stooped to speak to
the one who played the accordion.
"What a fine fellow," I thought; "they will put him in the Guards." I
did not know who he was or what house he belonged to.
"Whose son is that one? That gallant fellow?" I asked a little old man,
pointing to the fine lad.
The old man raised his cap and bowed to me, but did not hear my
question.
"What did you say?" asked he.
I had not recognised him, but as soon as he spoke I knew him at once.
He is a hard-working, good peasant who, as often happens, seems
specially marked out for misfortune: first, two horses were stolen from
him, then his house burnt down, and then his wife died. I had not seen
Prokófey for a long time, and remembered him as a bright red-haired man
of medium height; whereas he was now not red, but quite grey-haired,
and small.
"Ah, Prokófey, it's you!" I said. "I was asking whose son that fine
fellow is--that one who has just spoken to Alexander?"
"That one?" Prokófey replied, pointing with a motion of his head to the
tall lad. He shook his head and mumbled something I did not understand.
"I'm asking whose son the lad is?" I repeated, and turned to look at
Prokófey.
His face was puckered, and his jaw trembled.
"He's mine!" he muttered, and, turning away and hiding his face in his
hand, began to whimper like a child.
And only then, after the two words, "He's mine!" spoken by Prokófey,
did I realise, not only in my mind but in my whole being, the horror of
what was taking place before my eyes that memorable misty morning. All
the disjointed, incomprehensible, strange things I had seen suddenly
acquired a simple, clear, and terrible significance. I became painfully
ashamed of having looked on as at an interesting spectacle. I stopped,
conscious of having acted ill, and I turned to go home.
And to think that these things are at the present moment being done
to tens of thousands of men all over Russia, and have been done, and
will long continue to be done, to the meek, wise, and saintly Russian
people, who are so cruelly and treacherously deceived!
TRAVELLER AND PEASANT
[_The interior of a peasant hut. An old Traveller is sitting on
a bench, reading a book. A Peasant, the master of the hut, just
home from his work, sits down to supper and asks the Traveller to
share it. The Traveller declines. The Peasant eats, and when he has
finished, rises, says grace, and sits down beside the old man._]
PEASANT. What brings you?...
TRAVELLER [_taking off his spectacles and putting down his book_].
There is no train till to-morrow. The station is crowded, so I asked
your missis to let me stay the night with you, and she allowed it.
PEASANT. That's all right, you can stay.
TRAVELLER. Thank you!... Well, and how are you living nowadays?
PEASANT. Living? What's our life like?... As bad as can be!
TRAVELLER. How's that?
PEASANT. Why, because we've nothing to live on! Our life is so hard
that if we wanted a worse one, we couldn't get it.... You see, there
are nine of us in family; all want to eat, and I have only got in four
bushels of corn. Try and live on that! Whether one likes it or not, one
has to go and work for wages ... and when you look for a job, wages
are down!... The rich do what they like with us. The people increase,
but the land doesn't, and taxes keep piling up! There's rent, and the
district tax, and the land tax, and the tax for bridges, and insurance,
and police, and for the corn store ... too many to count! And there are
the priests and the landlords.... They all ride on our backs, except
those who are too lazy!
TRAVELLER. I thought the peasants were doing well nowadays.
PEASANT. So well, that we go hungry for days at a time!
TRAVELLER. The reason I thought so, was that they have taken to
squandering so much money.
PEASANT. Squandering what money? How strange you talk!... Here are
people starving to death, and you talk of squandering money!
TRAVELLER. But how is it? The papers say that 700 million roubles (and
a million is a thousand thousands)--700 million were spent by the
peasants on vódka last year.
PEASANT. Are we the only ones that drink? Just look at the priests....
Don't they swill first-rate? And the gentlefolk aren't behind-hand!
TRAVELLER. Still, that's only a small part. The greater part stills
falls to the peasants.
PEASANT. What of that? Are we not to drink at all?
TRAVELLER. No; what I mean is that if 700 millions were squandered on
vódka in one year it shows that life can't be so very hard.... 700
millions! It's no joke ... one can hardly imagine it!