Where this system of collective property exists, not, as in Russia, side by side with an aristocracy, which in its growth hasusurped half the soil and imposed serfage on the peasants, but, in all its purity, as formerly among the Germans and Slavs,and in Servia and Java even to the present day, it attains to such democratic equality, that it is likely to produce in thesociety a kind of uniformity and rigidity little favourable to new enterprise and rapid progress. The primitive cantons ofSwitzerland afford us a picture of this social condition. On the other hand, the fact maintained by von Haxthausen isincontestable, that this system prevents the inequality of conditions becoming extreme, and that it also offers great securitiesfor social peace. By refining the soil in the possession of the commune, it gives no opportunity for a few powerful families tomonopolize it. Moreover, the periodical allotment prevents the formation of a proletariat, as it assures to every one aninalienable portion of the common property. We may see around us, in some families, generation after generationtransmitting the right of consuming much without producing anything; and in other families, generations continually toilingwithout ever attaining property. When the natural right to a patrimony is respected and established in an institution, similarcontrasts cannot present themselves: for there can be no class without inheritance. Generation succeeds to generation in theenjoyment of the collective domain, and in the obligation to labour to make it productive. The system is accordingly apreservative against social struggles and wars of class with class.
To this it has been replied, that if it prevents a real proletariat from being developed, it is by keeping every one in poverty,and so creating a nation of proletarians. Look, it is said, at the Russian peasant: his condition is hardly better than that of theagricultural labourer of the West. He is neither better clothed, better lodged, nor better fed. Equality is maintained, it is true,but it is the equality of destitution. To this we can answer: the wants of the Russian peasant are simple and few in number,but they are satisfied; his mode of life is not refined, but he knows no other and is content. There is this great differencebetween the Russian usufructuary and the proletarian of the West, that the latter depends for his living on his employer,while the former, enjoying a patrimony in his own management, is his own master and labours for himself. He has no fear forthe future and lives in tranquillity; while with us the labourer is always fearing the reduction of his wages, the tenant theincrease of his rent.
Moreover, we should not forget that the Russian system has never yet been tried under favourable conditions. The peasant,it is true, had his patrimony; but at the same time he was subject to serfage: he was, that is to say, at the mercy of the lord,to whom he owed half his time. At once proprietor and slave, the burden of this service was likely to discourage his zeal forlabour and to stifle in the bud initiative spirit and the taste for improvements. Agriculture has never been fully developedwhere serfage existed. The abolition of serfage has put other impediments in the way of progress, by compelling the peasantto purchase the land which he occupied at an excessive price, and by depriving him of the use of the forest and pasturagewhich he had before. To form a correct estimate of the mir we should regard it under its normal conditions.
Suppose that the Russian peasants, now that they are enfranchised, were to receive such instruction as is given in theAmerican school, and that they were put on a level with the recent progress of agriculture: by an understanding such as wehave indicated, they could apply the most advanced processes of large cultivation as carried on in England. As it is, inconsequence of the Flurzwang, or compulsory rotation, all the territory of the commune is treated as if it only formed asingle farm. One-third part of the arable land of a particular tenant is sown with winter-grain, one-third with summer-grain,and the remaining third is fallow. Each has his share in the vast fields; but there are no boundaries, hedges, or ditches toseparate them, and the division of the property is not shewn by any break in the cultivation. Nothing therefore would beeasier than to execute the work of cultivation by means of a steam-plough bought at the common expense and used for thecommon profit. As every one has his share, or, as one may say, his stock, in the collective patrimony, the basis ofco-operative cultivation is ready to hand. The Flurzwang and the absence of inclosures, which were impediments to smallindividual cultivation, would, on the contrary, become an element of success for associated agriculture on a large scale.
Already the Russian peasants execute the different agricultural operations at the same time, after deliberation and decisioncome to in full assembly. This is exactly how they would proceed in a cooperative cultivation formed on the lines of thecommune. There would then be a kind of joint-stock company, in which all the usufructuaries would be shareholders, andwhich would take measures for making the land productive according to scientific principles.
