PREFACE TO "WHAT IS TO BE DONE?"
THE misery and sufferings of the very poor, in the so-called "slums," have a family resemblance in all the great cities of the world. The special feature which characterizes the old capital of Russia over and above the general features of that problem in our great American cities, or in London for example, is, that the poor are, almost exclusively, Russians, instead of a conglomeration of foreigners whom the law, ill-calculated ambition, or the spirit of restlessness, have driven out of their native lands.
These poor Russians, of whom the great Russian novelist and philanthropist writes in the pages of "What is to be Done?" are, in a great measure, the victims of the Emancipation of the Serfs. The Emancipation was, beyond question, not only righteous and beneficent, but a profoundly wise administrative measure. Nevertheless, the conditions were such that the owners of estates have suffered severely, though cheerfully, in company with their former serfs, in consequence of that measure. Some of the problems on the parts of both masters and serfs have gradually solved themselves, to a greater or less degree, in the generation which has elapsed since the Emancipation. Other problems have only become more complicated—notably the one herein dealt with. The peasant is still bound to the soil by the very real fetter of taxes for the current expenses of government, and, in many cases also, for the instalments of payment for the land which he received with his freedom. This communal burden he can neither escape nor evade; yet, at the same time, the allotments of communal land grow constantly smaller through periodical subdivision to
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