IV.—The Commune.
The appearance of Baron von Haxthausen's studies of the Russian commune as it now exists, with its autonomous administration and its collective proprietorship, was a revelation, even a joyful surprise, to Russia. It was like the discovery of a new world, proving the originality and excellence of a primordial institution, in which the nation felt it might glory in the face of astonished Europe. This proud conviction had a fall. Further inquiry proved a pre-existence of similar institutions in all countries, European and others—from Ireland to Java, from Egypt to India. The difference, then, between Russia and her Western neighbours was narrowed to one of age and civilization. But the pursuit of truth and the disappointments resulting therefrom did not end here. Students began to think they perceived that the Russian commune, which had been taken to be identical with primitive forms of organization, delayed and kept in the rudimentary form by a slower development of social and economic life, was really a thing of recent growth. Far from being the outcome of the patriarchal communism of prehistoric times, was it not rather the result of a collective responsibility for the payment of taxes—a responsibility unknown to the free peasants of the sixteenth century, and imposed on the rural communities of a later date by the law of serfdom? A fossil formation? Not a bit! A product of the political system which triumphed in Russia under Ivan IV.? A national trait? No, again! A State institution.
Thus, according to the point of view set forth by Monsieur Tchitcherine ('Essays on the History of Russian Law,' 1858, p. 4, etc.), and still more recently by Monsieur Milioukov ('Essays on the History of Russian Culture,' i., p. 186, etc.), we here have an instance, and a most striking one, of that reversed progress which, in some things, appears a peculiarity of the economic and social development of this country.
But is it a well-chosen instance?
During the first half of the sixteenth century serfdom, as we have seen, was only an occasional condition in Russia. But the commune, with its association of free peasants, already existed. Every peasant, in fact, was bound to belong to one of these associations. Those who lived outside their borders were mere vagabonds. These associations were autonomous organizations, within which a democratic and communistic form of existence reigned. The assembly which discussed the common interests was composed of the elders of every household in a certain district, which included several
