Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

“ Artels.
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II U S S I A
shown that no redistribution is made without urgent necessity,
dhus, to quote but one instance, in 4442 village communities of
Moscow, the average number of redistributions has been 2'1 in
twenty years (1858-78), and in more than two-thirds of these
communities the redistribution took place only once. On the
other hand, a regular rotation of all households over all lots, in
order to equalize the remaining minor inequalities, is very often
practised in the black-earth region, where no manure is needed.
Besides the arable mark, there is usually a vygon (or “ common ”)
for grazing, to which all householders send their cattle, whatever
the number they possess. The meadows are either divided on the
above principles, or mowed in common, and the hay divided
according to the number of lots. The forests, when consisting of
small wood in sufficient quantity, are laid under no regulations;
when this is scarce, every trunk is counted, and valued according
to its age, number of branches, &c., and the whole is divided accord¬
ing to the number of lots.
_ The houses and the orchards behind them belong also, in prin¬
ciple, to the community ; but no peredyel is made, except after a
fire or when the necessity arises of building the houses at greater
distances apart. The orchards usually remain for years in the
same hands, with but slow equalizations of the lots in width.
All decisions in the village community are given by the mir,
that is, by the general assembly of all householders,—women being
admitted on an equal footing with men, -when widows, or when their
male guardians are absent. For the decisions unanimity is neces¬
sary ; and, though in some difficult cases of a general peredyel the
discussions may last for two or three days, no decision is reached
until the minority has declared its agreement with the majority.
Each commune elects an elder (starosta); he is the executive,
but has no authority apart from that of the mir whose decisions
he carries out. All attempts on the part of the Government to
make him a functionary have failed.
Opinion as to the advantages and disadvantages of the village
community being much divided in Russia, it has been within the
last twenty years the subject of extensive inquiry, both private
and official, and of an ever-growing literature and polemic. The
supporters of the mir are found chiefly among those who have made
more or less extensive inquiries into its actual organization and con¬
sequences, while their opponents draw their arguments principally
from theoretical considerations of political economy. The main
reproach that it checks individual development and is a source of
immobility has been shaken of late by a better knowledge of the
institution, which has brought to light its remarkable plasticity and
powder of adaptation to new circumstances. The free settlers in
Siberia have voluntarily introduced the same organization. In north
and north-east Russia, where arable land is scattered in small patches
among forests, communities of several villages, or “ volost ” com¬
munities, have arisen; and in the “ voisko ” of the Ural Cossacks we
find community of the whole territory as regards both land and fish¬
eries and work in common. Nay, the German colonists of southern
Russia, who set out with the principle of personal property, have sub¬
sequently introduced that of the village community, adapted to their
special needs (Clauss). In some localities, where there was no great
scarcity of land and the authorities did not interfere, joint cultiva¬
tion of a common area for filling the storehouses has recently been
developed (in Penza 974 communes have introduced this system and
[village communities.
cultivate an aggregate of 26,910 acres). The renting of land in
OO o 7 XV-'XXUALig V-71 IdllLl 111
common,or even purchase of land by wealthy communes, has become
quite usual, as also the purchase in common of agricultural imple¬
ments. r
Since the emancipation of the serfs, however, the mir has been
undergoing profound modifications. The differences of wealth
which ensued,—the impoverishment of the mass, the rapid increase
of the rural proletariat, and the enrichment of a few' “kulaks”
and “miroyedes” (“ mir-eaters ”),—are certainly operating un¬
favourably for the mir. The miroyedes steadily strive to break up
the organization of the commune as an obstacle to the extension
of their power over the moderately well-to-do peasants ; while the
proletariat cares little about the mir. Fears on the one side and
hopes on the other have been thus entertained as to the likelihood
of the mir resisting these disintegrating influences, favoured, more¬
over, by those landowners and manufacturers who foresee in the
creation of a rural proletariat the certainty of cheap labour. But
the village community does not appear as yet to have lost the power
of adaptation which it has exhibited throughout its history. If,
indeed, the impoverishment of the peasants continues to go on, and
legislation also, interferes with the mir, it must of course disap¬
pear, but not without a corresponding disturbance in Russian life.1
The co-operative spirit of the Great Russians shows itself further
i See Collection of Materials on Village Communities, published by the Geogra-
a^Ci ®conorn'cal Societies, vol. i. (containing a complete bibliography up to
1880). Of more recent works the following are worthy of notice :—Lutchitsky
Collectwn of Materials for the History of the Village Community in the Ukraine,
Kieit, 1884; Efimenko, Researches into Popular Life, 1884; Hantower On the
Origin of the Czinsz Possession, 1884; Samokvasoff, History of Russian Law, 1884;
Keus.sler.ATur Geschichte und Kritik desbauerlichen G emeinde-Resit zes in Russland,
1 vols., 1884; and papers in publications of Geographical Society.
in another sphere in the artels, which have also been a prominent
feature of Russian life since the dawn of history. The artel verv
much resembles the co-operative society of western Europe, with this
difference that it makes its appearance without any impulse from
theory, simply as a natural form of popular life. When workmen
from any province come, for instance, to St Petersburg to ensure
in the textile industries, or to wrork as carpenters, masons &c
they immediately unite in groups of from ten to fifty persons’
settle in a house together, keep a common table, and pay each his
Part of the expense to the elected elder of the artel. All Russia is
covered with such artels,—in the cities, in the forests, on the banks
ot rivers, on journeys, and even in the prisons.
The industrial artel is almost as frequent as the preceding in all
those trades which admit ot it. A social history of the most funda¬
mental state of Russian society would be a history of their hunting
fishing, shipping, trading, building, exploring art els. Artels of one
or two hundred carpenters, bricklayers, &c., are common wherever
new buildings have to be erected, or railways or bridges made • the
contractors always prefer to deal with an artel, rather than’with
separate workmen. The same principles are often put into practice
in the domestic trades. It is needless to add that the wages divided
by the artels are higher than those earned by isolated workmen
Finally, a great number of artels on the stock exchange, in the
seaports, in the great cities (commissionaires), during the great
fairs, and on railways have grown up of late, and have acquired
the confidence of tradespeople to such an extent that considerable
sums of money and complicated banking operations are frequently
handed over to an artelshik (member of an artel) without any
receipt, his number or his name being accepted as sufficient
guarantee. These artels are recruited only on personal acquaint¬
ance with the candidates for membership, and security r each in o-
£80 to £100 is exacted in the exchange artels. These last have a
tendency to become mere joint-stock companies employing salaried
servants. Co-operative societies have lately been organized by
several zemstvos. They have achieved good results, but do not
exhibit, on the whole, the same unity of organization as those which
have arisen in a natural way among peasants and artisans.2
The chief occupation of the population of Russia is agriculture Atrri
Only in a few parts of Moscow, Vladimir, and Nijni has it been culture
abandoned for manufacturing pursuits. Cattle-breeding is the
leading industry in the Steppe region, the timber-trade in the
north-east, and fishing on the White and Caspian Seas. Of the
total surface of Russia, 1,237,360,000 acres (excluding Finland),
1,018,737,000 acres are registered, and it appears that 39'9 per
cent, of these belongs to the crown, 1-9 to the domains (udel)
31‘2 to peasants, 247 to landed proprietors or to private com¬
panies, and 2'3 to the towns and monasteries. Of the acres
registered only 592,650,000 can be considered as “good,” that is
capable of paying the land tax; and of these 248,630,000 acres
were under crops in 1884.3 The crops of 1883 were those of an
average year, that is, 2‘9 to 1 in central Russia, and 4 to 1 in
south Russia, and were estimated as follows (seed corn being left
out of account):—Rye, 49,185,000 quarters; wheat, 21,605 000-
oats, 50,403,000 ; barley, 13,476,000 ; other grains, 18,808,000.’
Those of 1884 (a very good year) reached an average of 18 per
cent, higher, except oats. The crops are, however, very unequally
distributed. In an average year there are 8 governments which
are some 6,930,000 quarters short of their requirements, 35 which
have an excess of 33,770,000 quarters, and 17 which have neither
excess nor deficiency. The export of corn from Russia is steadily
increasing, having risen from 6,560,000 quarters in 1856-60 to an
average of 23,700,000 quarters in 1876-83 and 26,623,700 quarters
in 1884. This increase does not prove, however, an excess of
corn, for even when one-third of Russia was famine-stricken, durhm
the last years of scarcity, the export trade did not decline ; even
Samara exported during the last famine there, the peasants being
compelled to sell their corn in autumn to pay their taxes. Scarcity
is quite usual, the food supply of some ten provinces being
exhausted every year by the end of the spring. Orach, and even
bark, are then mixed with flour for making bread.
Flax, both for yarn and seed, is extensively grown in the north¬
west and west, and the annual production is estimated at 6,400 000
cwts. of fibre and 2,900,000 quarters of linseed. Hemp is largely
cultivated in the central governments, the yearly production being
2 See Isaeff cm Artels in Russia, and in Appendix to Russian translation of
Reclus; Kaiatclioff, The Artels of Old and New Russia ; Recueil of Materials on
Artels (2vols.); Sclierbina, South Russian Artels-, Nemiroff, Stock Exchange
Artels (all Russian).
3 The dirision of the registered land is as follows, the figures being percentages
of the whole:—
Peasants’ holdings...
Private holdings
Crovfti and domains..
Total.
Arable
Land.
S3-8
27-2
1-7
Forests.
10-1
37-6
64-3
Meadows,
Pasture.
26-6
231
1-6
Unproductive,
9-5
11-9
32-4