Russia. Donald Mackenzie Wallace

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ