The main feature of Russian life has always been considered the Russian community, and - communalism. A wide variety of publicists wrote about the Russian community in the 60s and 70s of the 19th century. V. G. Avseenko, for example, understood that the Russian community, this arch-national institution, owes its origin primarily to the weakness of personal, individual instincts in the Russian peasant: he needs this collective communal personality, because he is aware of the weakness and inactivity of his individual personality. The desire for community is understood here as a means of getting rid of fear, overcoming the meaninglessness of the life of an individual person. The anonymous author of “Domestic Notes” saw in the Russian community and gathering the ideal of social freedom developed by the Russian peasantry: “If the Russian peasant were not so deeply imbued with this basic condition of social freedom, if he had not sucked it in with his mother’s milk, then communal ownership would not could become so ubiquitous and last so long.” The brilliant Vladimir Solovyov realized that the institution of community is a direct expression of the idea of syncretism underlying the national spirit: “Indeed, the historical principle of the development of law, as directly expressing the general basis of the national spirit in its indivisible unity, directly corresponds to the beginning of community, and the opposite mechanical the principle that derives law from an external agreement between all the individual atoms of society is an obvious direct expression of the individualistic principle.” At the same time, community is understood by Solovyov as an internal coincidence between the strongest development of the individual and complete social unity, which would satisfy the main moral requirement: that everyone should be the goal of everyone. The Slavophile mythologist O.F. Miller also wrote about the same principle of community: “In a community, everyone has in mind the good of everyone, the good of the whole. ...morality comes down to the fact that, while defending one’s personality, not only not allowing it to develop to the detriment of others, but also consciously sacrificing oneself for V.G. Avseenko. Again about nationality and cultural types of a common cause.” A similar idea is expressed by Dostoevsky in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” through the mouth of Elder Zosima. It also appears in other populist writers. The personality in such conditions is not destroyed, but, on the contrary, reaches the highest spiritual level of development, when a person consciously sacrifices himself for the sake of everyone. Community is a voluntary and supreme unity of pluralities. F. Shcherbina even tried to give a scientific definition of community: By “society” the people mean, first of all, a well-known union of the agricultural population, a union that binds its members together by a community of interests in relation to: 1) self-government in general, 2) religious, moral and intellectual needs, 3) to serve state and public duties and 4) to the right to own and use community land and property.” Community relations, as we see, permeated all spheres of Russian life.
Populist writers (and populism was the leading ideological movement of the 60s and 70s of the 19th century) derived communalism from patriarchal “primitive communism.” V. Solovyov wrote: “The simplicity and monosyllabus of the original way of life is expressed in the economic sphere, firstly, in the absence of personal property in the strict sense, a kind of communism, and, secondly, in the simplicity and monotony of labor itself and its products. The original communism, actually proven by the latest research into prehistoric culture, directly follows from the predominance of the gens over the individual.” Somewhat later, already at the beginning of the 20th century, the critic E. A. Solovyov gave the following assessment of populism: “In peasant Russia, they saw the existence of such foundations, based on which, in their opinion, it was possible to nurture the wildest hopes. These foundations were the artel, the community, the handicraft industry and other remnants of “primitive communism,” as Western sociologists call this phenomenon. This brought the populists closer to the Slavophiles.” But if “primitive communism” directly correlates with archaic, mythological culture, then communalism, therefore, also becomes the result of the activity of mythological consciousness.
This relationship between the community and primitive, patriarchal “communism” formed the basis of Dostoevsky’s story. He assumed that historical progress contains three stages. In the sketch “Socialism and Christianity” (1864-1865), he wrote: “Patriarchy was a primitive state. Civilization is average, transitional. Christianity is the third and final degree of man, but here development ends, the ideal is achieved...” In patriarchal communities, a person lives directly in the masses, but in the future, achieving the ideal will mean returning to spontaneity, to the masses, but freely and not even by will, not by reason, but simply by the feeling that this is very good and so necessary. This concept of Dostoevsky then formed the basis of his utopian story “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.” Apparently, under the influence of Dostoevsky, V. Solovyov expressed the same idea: “Thus, in the historical development of law, as in any development, we notice three main stages: 1) initial unfree unity; 2) isolation of individual; 3) their free unity.” The populists, however, believed that it was possible in development to bypass the second stage (bourgeois civilization) and immediately, relying on the communal foundations of Russian life, reach a new, voluntary and free unity, a new social order. In fact, this meant a direct, albeit at a completely new level, return to mythological culture, a return to myth, since community (old, new or “future”) always corresponds to intuitive thinking and syncretic worldview, i.e. - myth. At this new level, mythology was to be expressed in the spirituality and transcendental aspiration of the Russian people.
This new level of community was then called “all-unity.” The philosopher of unity at this time (70s of the 19th century) was V. Solovyov. He said that man’s desire for the unconditional, that is, the desire to be all in unity or to be all-one, is an undoubted fact. The philosopher recognized that man or humanity is a being that contains within itself (in absolute order) the divine idea, that is, unity, or the unconditional fullness of being, and realizes this idea (in the natural order) through rational freedom in material nature.” Such unity (unity in plurality) is achieved when the principle is realized that “everything is immanent to everything” (Lossky), when everything is internally inherent in everything and does not exist in itself, but is in the closest connection with everything, exists for everyone. This worldview of a Russian person is completely opposite to that of a European. The religious philosopher R. Guardini saw this: “In contrast to the widespread “in the West” position, which boils down to the formula “you are not me, I am not you,” here it is assumed that in “you” there is also “I”, although their content is different." Russian people overcome oppositionality and binaryness and replace them with syncretism and unity. Moreover, the category of unity, as bearing an ideal, correlates not with fleeting time, but with the same ideal eternity. All-unity is therefore ontological and therefore mythological. The Russian idea is a thirst for the embodiment of unity, the unity of all people in the name of Christ and under the banner of the Orthodox Church.
Here a new aspect of the problem of Russian community and unity appears - the deep religiosity of Russians and conciliarity. In the Russian idea, knowledge merges with faith, and this reveals another aspect of syncretism. At the same time, myth and religion are close concepts, but not the same. They can intersect and interact, interpenetrate, but in principle they relate to completely different levels and areas of the human personality. Myth occupies the subconscious, where it is in an unidentified form, and religion belongs to the sphere of the superconscious and is always conscious. Of course, elements of myth are preserved in religion, since the superconscious interacts with consciousness, and consciousness is controlled by the subconscious. But there is no “cancellation” or “replacement” of myth with religion. We can only talk about the interaction or, in rare cases, the predominance in the soul of a nation, people, tribe or individual of the subconscious (myth) or superconscious (religion). Russian religiosity is directly related to mythology and becomes one of the features of the national character. N. Ya. Danilevsky noted in the book “Russia and Europe” that “religion constituted the most essential, dominant (almost exclusive) content of ancient Russian life, and at present it is the predominant spiritual interest of ordinary Russian people...” From here the philosopher derives “the Orthodox concept, which asserts that the church is the collection of all believers of all times and peoples under the headship of Jesus Christ and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and ascribes infallibility to the church thus understood.” Community, taken in a religious, church aspect, is the conciliarity on which our outstanding thinkers pinned their hopes.
It is known that Danilevsky’s book “Russia and Europe” formed the basis for the reasoning of the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” Shatov, that V. Solovyov very highly valued this deepest study of the soul of the Russian people. True unity is possible only as conciliarity, that is, in Christ and through a single conciliar Orthodox Church. N. I. Aksakov wrote: “So, only in the church can the complete unity of the common be combined with the complete freedom of personal conviction, for this is actually the task of the church, as communication, so that in it the formation of the common tirelessly goes hand in hand with the complete freedom of each separate unit." Genuine community is possible in Orthodox culture only as conciliarity, as churchliness. O. Miller believed that “both on political and religious grounds, the starting point of Slavophilism is the concept of community - not as some kind of institution, but as a purely moral union between people. The longevity of the community is a predisposition to joining the church, as a community not only of “those who have been baptized, but also of those who have put on Christ.” These same reflections formed the basis of Leskov’s novel “Soborians” and his story “At the End of the World.”
Communal Russian culture has always been characterized by traditionalism. Traditionalism means the expression in certain stereotypes of the group experience of a people and their spatio-temporal transmission. It is tradition that becomes the common denominator on which individual tribes are formed into a nation. This tradition is always spiritual, always sacred and always reflects national identity. The role of the community here is fundamental. It was she who formed, preserved, changed and passed on traditions. Community, conciliarity, unity mean not only the unity of people in space, but also in time. Through tradition, ancestors became contemporaries, since a person repeated or resumed their behavior, which formed the basis of the tradition. The very preservation of the stability of society is impossible without people recognizing certain common values. Typically, these values are recognized due to their consecration by time, experience or mode of origin. These values form the basis of the tradition. Thus, tradition controls the form and even the place of life of the tribe, subjugates the needs of the tribe and its history. Therefore, traditionalism rejects linear time and replaces it with cyclical time, which means that it is mythologized.
Any traditional culture is mythological, since tradition is a mythological paradigm enshrined in experience and time-honored. It is generally correct to divide societies not into primitive (or primitive) and modern (or developed), but into traditional, static and revolutionary, developing. Each of these types corresponds to its own special form of consciousness. Traditional culture corresponds to mythological consciousness and a syncretic, undivided society. Revolutionary culture is characterized by anti-traditionalism, rationalism, and positivism. The Slavophiles and Pochvenniks in Russia were traditionalists; Westerners, revolutionary democrats and socialists - anti-traditionalists. Traditionalism is not just an appeal to the past, but, as we have already said, its sacralization. The rationalistic denial of traditions is one of the forms of the revolt of the profane against the sacred. The decline of tradition leads to the denial of collectivist, communal foundations, to the division of a single society into separate units (pluralism). On the other hand, the development of private property and private entrepreneurship weakened communal foundations in Russia and fundamentally undermined traditionalism.
E. Shatsky identifies the following features of traditionalism in agrarian society: 1) sacred-mythological or religious overtones (prescription is consecrated by the authority of supernatural forces); 2) syncretism; the world is presented as a single whole, where the natural, social, divine and spatiotemporal merge; 3) the established order is perceived as indestructible, unchanging, stable; 4) culture is perceived as something integral, and changes in each of its parts are considered dangerous for the existence of the culture as a whole; in general, culture and progress are possible only within the framework of tradition; 5) the lack of alternative to established traditions, the impossibility of choosing principles of behavior, the unambiguity of tradition; 6) unconsciousness, unawareness of following tradition; tradition is experienced but not realized; traditionalism inevitably turns out to be irrationalism. Traditionalism is thus based on the recognition, first of all, of the ritual-mythological, magical and religious essence of man. God, spirit, ancestor or cultural hero is the creator of both the cosmic and social order, and just as the cosmos is unchanged, so is society. Tradition, therefore, reveals mythological times to man and brings them into the present. It is not prescription, but holiness, the sacredness of revelation that is the basis of tradition. It sacralizes people’s lives and helps them survive in a profane environment. Tradition is also ontological, since it relates man to the primordial times, to the root causes of Existence. In general, tradition acts as a mediator between modernity and eternity, history and myth; it is a means of mythologizing life.
Tradition is close to myth in three other ways: in the presence of a paradigm, in connection with natural cycles, and in the cult of ancestors. “The past,” says Shatsky, “is a storehouse of precedents, examples, experiences, specific patterns of sensations, thinking and behavior. Remaining faithful to our predecessors, we must behave in the same way as they did, without asking “why” and “what for.” Tradition carries exemplary models and itself acts as a paradigm, as a norm of behavior, that is, it carries the same functions as myth. This can only mean one thing: tradition has a mythological consciousness at its core; it is, in principle, mythological. In order to maintain stability, a person has developed a complex of “the need for heritage as a paradigm,” and as a role model, tradition and myth become the goal of a person’s cultural activity and its basis, to which he completely subordinates his activities.
Like myth, the Russian community in its life and its traditions are directly dependent on natural cycles. The labor rhythm, sanctified by tradition, is determined by the cyclical change of seasons, which also underlies the mythological-ritual system. Among such ritual traditions, clearly mythological and even pagan ones have been preserved - an appeal to the first ancestors, nature spirits and pagan deities who were supposed to ensure a good harvest (Mother Earth, Yarilo, Kupala, Kostroma, Chur, brownie, field, etc.). Supernatural forces were addressed during common holidays (i.e., “by the whole society”), which were of agricultural origin. The tradition of “sacred days” also has the same deep mythological roots, when it was forbidden to work or perform certain types of work (for example, spinning on Fridays).
The preservation of tradition is combined with the cult of ancestors. Tradition is associated with continuity, i.e. with the desire of the tribe to maintain ties with their ancestors and establish them with their descendants. A nation is a union of people not only in space, but also in time. No new generation is free from the values and ideals developed in the past. Traditionalism includes the ideas of heritage, continuity and return to a lost ideal, the bearers or creators of which were the first ancestors. The traditionalism of the tribe lies in the fact that a person (thanks to ritual) strives to achieve identification with his ancestors, with previous generations. In traditional rituals (weddings, funerals, agricultural holidays), the deceased directly took part in the affairs of the living. So, the idea of continuity of generations, respect for previous generations, the authority of ancestors directly goes back to the mythological cult of ancestors. Hence the worship of Rod, Chur, the brownie, mermaids, etc. N. Fedorov’s teaching about the “common cause” - the physical resurrection of dead ancestors by the forces of science - is the apogee of philosophical speculation about the cult of mythological ancestors. Finally, the question of the means of transmitting traditions also becomes very important. There are two levels of preservation and transmission of traditions in a community - family and professional. The family, as a community unit, bears the main burden of transmitting traditions; it is the family, and not the school, not the place of work, not the army or other structures that contribute to the socialization of a person. The opinion of the family and relatives acted as a regulator and incentive for behavior. Afanasyev noted the enormous importance of the family for understanding the worldview of the Slavs: “Due to the natural, physiological conditions that determined the initial development of infant tribes, the Slav was primarily a kind and homely family man. In the circle of his family or clan (which was the same family, only expanded) his whole life passed, with all its everyday life and related celebrations; it concentrated his most vital interests and kept his most cherished traditions and beliefs.” Hence the cult of fire, hearth, home and home patron spirits. The family was generally considered one of the main shrines among the Slavs; in the family “thoughts and feelings about the people, duty, loyalty, spiritual strength and purity of personal human thoughts merge.” Family life was viewed as a spiritual, religious, righteous feat, and family is considered one of the most important features of Russian national identity associated with community.
The number of professional, specific keepers and transmitters of traditions and testaments of ancestors included rural righteous men and healers, craftsmen, storytellers of epics and fairy tales, and permanent stewards of ritual games. All these persons trace their origins back to mythological antiquity, when they merged into the priestly caste.
But there was also a national level of preserving traditions. Here the main role was played by two classes - clergy and aristocrats. Priests have always been the guardians of not only religion, but also the spiritual traditions of the people in all cultures. Leskov spoke about this role of the priesthood in the novel “Soborians”. As for the aristocracy, at the state level it becomes the only group of persons united not by mode of action, but by right of birth (in Russia, this situation existed before the reforms of Peter I). Aristocracy is the support of the traditions of the state and the collective memory of the people. The main purpose of the existence of the aristocracy is to preserve traditions. Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin (“The Idiot”) and Versilov (“The Teenager”) become such traditionalist aristocrats. Genetically closed groups of bearers of traditions (aristocracy) go back to the secret societies of mythological cultures, the main function of which is the preservation of secret sacred cults and customs.
Tradition is associated with myth, and traditional culture cannot but be mythological. The task of myth is to justify and strengthen tradition, and any tradition rests on myth - the sacred tradition of the tribe. National spirits and national history, implicated in a traditionalist approach, are always mythologized. Political ideology also grows from myth, especially when it, such as conservatism, is directly related to the idea of tradition. Such conservatism is not something negative, but becomes the key to natural evolutionary progress: “The basis of even the most noble and progressive struggle for personality is, obviously, conservatism of form, as the very word self-preservation shows. Conservatism is the basis and source of progress, as strange as it may seem at first.” The political ideology of conservatism comes out of mythological traditionalism and is built as a new mythology. But if a person or group of people (party) chooses something specific from the past as an ideal, then they are guided by the fact that some elements of it are quite acceptable today. Such a well-founded tradition, chosen consciously and becoming an ideology, inevitably ceases to be “reactionary” and turns into a conservative utopia. The future grows naturally out of the past, rather than replacing it through negation. If traditionalism has a religious and mythological overtones, evaluates the world as a single sensory-material cosmos, and the world order as unchanging, stable, then it becomes the basis for unity, conciliarity and theocracy.
The communalism and traditionalism of Russians corresponds to the agricultural, soil nature of the culture. “The people,” wrote R. Guardini about the Russians, “stand at the origins of existence. He has merged into a single whole with the earth - the earth on which he walks, on which he works and thanks to which he lives. It is organically included in the general context of nature, in the biological cycles of light and growth. And he feels, perhaps subconsciously, the unity of the Universe.” , soil, nature and its cycles, non-distinction with them, non-selection and unity with the Universe and especially with the native land - this is one of the components of the Russian soul. Hence the pochvenism of the Dostoevsky brothers, A. Grigoriev and N. Strakhov, who expected the merger of all classes of the Russian people on the basis of a single religion, in the vastness of a single land. Dostoevsky dreamed of returning the educated classes of Russian society to their native soil.
Community and femininity gave rise to the following character traits among Russians by the end of the 19th century: tolerance, traditionalism, non-violence and non-resistance, gentleness, humility and respect for elders, respect and love for the younger, the desire for brotherhood and justice, collectivism, familyism, kindness and forgiveness, humility and dreaminess, pan-humanity, pity for the humiliated and insulted, love that stands above justice, self-sacrifice as a moral law, the thirst for happiness and the search for the meaning of life, suffering for the sake of finding an ideal and compassion for the sake of saving one’s neighbor, responsiveness, deep spirituality, transcendence and deep religiosity , the priority of the spiritual over the material and an appeal to the higher, ideal, divine world. All these character traits make up the mythology of the Russian nation and directly influence its entire history. The mysticism of the earth in Russian self-consciousness has also given rise to a number of basic mythologies in its culture. And above all, this is, of course, the type of wanderer. Wandering is a feature of Russian self-awareness. Russian telluric (soil) culture is characterized by a feeling of limitless space. From him comes the desire to master these limits, which occurs through movement on the earth. This is very close to the type of mythological cultural hero who, as he moves through space, brings order to it, destroying the remnants of chaos and mastering space. The Russian wanderer does not have his own home on earth, because he is looking for the Kingdom of God. The mythological cultural hero also sees as his goal the achievement of the kingdom of the gods, or the discovery of a certain sacred place - the energy center of the world. Such a wanderer is directly opposite to the Russian wanderer. Wanderers appear on the pages of Dostoevsky’s novels (Makar Dolgoruky in “The Teenager” and Elder Zosima in “The Brothers Karamazov”), in Leskov (Ivan Flyagin in “The Enchanted Wanderer”), in Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'?” and in a number of works by L. N. Tolstoy (“Father Sergius”, “Posthumous Notes of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich”, etc.).
The sacred center in a myth can be a beautiful Garden of Eden - a sacred space closed to ordinary people. Usually this place is cursed or sanctified by God himself and is opposed to the external, profane world. We encounter such a cursed space in the story
Leskova "Hare harness". Dostoevsky, in “The Diary of a Writer,” argued that the idea of the Garden is capable of saving everyone: “Humanity will be renewed in the Garden and straightened out by the Garden - that’s the formula. Now they are waiting for the third phase: the bourgeoisie will end and Renewed Humanity will come. It will divide the land into communities and begin to live in the Garden.” Such a utopian Garden also appears in Dostoevsky’s story “The Dream of a Funny Man” as a beautiful, but quite achievable ideal. As you can see, the Garden’s mythology is directly connected with the soilness and community of Russian culture, and with mythological ideas about sacred space. The Garden's mythology becomes the prototype of the biblical Garden of Eden and the apocalyptic New Jerusalem. The mythology of the plowman is very important for Russian telluric culture. The farmer, the plowman, is the main figure of agricultural crops. In Slavic mythology, he is always a cultural hero, liberating the earth from demonic forces (remnants of chaos) and bringing order to space. This is Nikita Kozhemyaka, who drowned the snake and made the Universe strictly structured (by drawing a line on the earth with a plow). Among the Slavs, the farmer is always confronted by a giant or a sorcerer, whom he nevertheless overcomes. The image of Mikula Selyaninovich, the hero of epics and a mighty plowman, is very important here. He wanders across the Russian land (the motive of wandering) and carries earthly cravings in his bag. It is said that the Cheese Earth Mother loves him, so he becomes invincible. Mikula Selyaninovich turns out to be stronger and smarter than the cunning sorcerer and hunter Volkh Vseslavich and more powerful than the giant and hero Svyatogor. Mikula's victory over these heroes reflected the transition from a hunting culture to an agricultural one among the Slavs, since Svyatogor is a fragment of the image of the supreme god of the sky among the Slavic hunters (Svyatovit, Svarog). Nikita Kozhemyaka and Mikula Selyaninovich are the thunder god Perun, transformed into fairy-tale and epic images, who, writes Afanasyev, “as a generous giver of rain... was revered as the creator of harvests, the establisher of agriculture, the patron of peasant ploughmen, and even himself, according to folk legends , went out in the guise of a simple peasant to cultivate the fields with his golden plow.” The plowman also becomes a cosmic hero, since the constellation Orion in the myths of the peoples of the world is a heavenly plow, a prototype of the earthly, human. Thus, the image of the farmer in Russian culture goes back to deep pagan antiquity and is mythologized.
Agriculture, as we have seen, in mythology is associated with the cosmic order, with the sacred world of seeds, buds, shoots, spring, flowers, fruits. The cyclism of the agricultural calendar underlay the stability of the world. Throwing grain into the ground (his funeral) and subsequent germination (resurrection) is the basis of pagan cults of the dying and resurrecting god (Osiris, Dionysus, Yarila, Kostroma). But Christianity with its idea of the risen Christ also corresponds to agricultural culture. Fallen and resurrected grain, seed is one of the persistent mythologies of Russian culture. It is therefore not surprising that it appears in Dostoevsky’s novels (the idea of a fallen and reborn hero) and especially in The Brothers Karamazov, where the biblical image of fallen grain is used as an epigraph. This image is expanded by Dostoevsky to the universal level. First of all, the seed can be understood as the soul. The human body is a prison for the soul, the grave of the soul. Then the seed (soul) will not be resurrected to a new life unless it dies (passes through the stage of life in the body). The writer also correlates the image of a seed with the concept of an idea. F. A. Stepun clarifies: “An idea is the seed of the other world; the emergence of this seed in earthly gardens is the secret of every human soul and every human destiny.” God throws an idea-seed onto the earth that must sprout in our world. The idea-seed is the divine prototype, which receives concrete bodily embodiment in us. This idea-seed-prototype falls into the soul of Dostoevsky’s hero in order to emerge there as a complete system of views and completely subjugate the hero’s will to himself, making him a “monomaniac”, a sufferer of the idea (such are Raskolnikov and Arkady Dolgoruky, Shatov and Kirillov, Ivan Karamazov). Here the “idea” completely takes possession of a person and becomes his personal myth, the mythological paradigm of the hero. The horse occupies a special place in agricultural culture. In Russian literature, he is transformed into the image of a downtrodden nag. This mythology was creatively used by N.A. Nekrasov (the poem “Before Twilight”), Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment”, “The Brothers Karamazov”), Saltykov-Shchedrin (the fairy tale “The Horse”). In all cases, the image of a downtrodden nag is correlated with the theme of the downtrodden Russian people, their fate. Downtroddenness, meekness, irresponsibility and backbreaking, killing labor - this is what brings the image of a horse to the level of national mythology. But the horse is also directly a mythological image. Directly connected with the earth (where all living things go after death), the horse is a psychopom animal, a soul-bearer in the kingdom of the dead; he is also the image of death itself. The theme of the horse-death in myth and the theme of the slaughtered nag in Russian culture constantly intersect (in Shchedrin’s “The Horse”). But in the guise of a horse, the self also appears - the eternal worker on the heavenly field in agricultural mythology. The motive for the constant, exhausting and killing labor of a downtrodden nag can also be explained mythologically. Continuity of action as punishment is one of the constant motifs in the mythology of the underworld (the myth of Sisyphus). So we see that national images and motifs directly grow out of ancient mythological models and, in turn, are again mythologized.
The community was a rather complex and contradictory socio-economic phenomenon. Identifying the essence and nature of these contradictions is extremely important for a general assessment of the entire social history of Russia and the characteristics of the national mentality of the Russian population. Being one of the basic ideological characteristics of autocratic Russia, concluded in the triad: autocracy - Orthodoxy - nationality, the community was the keeper of traditions, one of the foundations of conservative foundations. At the same time, being a school of collective farming and self-government, it could become the basis for the formation of optimal social relations built on the basis of the principle of equality and social justice, and other norms of peasant ethics. Opposing ideological and political forces focused attention on different aspects of the community. Some saw it as a source of healthy conservatism, while others saw it as a brake on economic and social progress. On the one hand, the moral and ethical imperatives and prohibitions of the community in the modern interpretation protected the moral principles of a healthy lifestyle, regulated the norms of behavior of people in society, putting barriers to antisocial actions. On the other hand, in the closed and closed environment of the rural world, negative destructive forces grew.
The larger the community and the more the sum of collective factors characteristic of each large community is based on conservative prejudices harmful to individuality, the more the individual will be suppressed - morally and spiritually - and as a result the only source of moral and spiritual progress of society will become overgrown with the mire of collectivism. As one might expect, the only thing that can grow wildly in such an atmosphere is the social instinct and everything that relates to the collective in the individual. Everything individual in him dies, that is, he is doomed to be repressed. Individual elements descend into the unconscious, where, by the law of necessity, they transform into something essentially evil, destructive and anarchic. In society, this evil principle reveals itself in spectacular crimes (regicide, etc.) committed by some prophetically minded individuals; but among the majority of the masses it remains in the shadows and manifests itself only indirectly, in the inexorable moral degeneration of society. The Russian community in reality exercised constant control over its members and did not allow the dark sides of the subconscious to spill out. Lumpenized peasants, arriving in the city and freed from the tutelage of the rural world, became carriers of antisocial behavior and contributed to the formation of the socio-psychological prerequisites for revolutionary terror.
The peasant land community was a historically established form of joint land use and self-government, was engaged in the redistribution of land, regulated a wide range of issues of intra-community life and fulfilled tax and other obligations to the state. The community arose historically as a way of collective survival of the Russian peasantry in extreme conditions. The peasant was forced into the community from birth, and economic participation was manifested in joint responsibility for paying taxes and devoting funds to common projects. Income from enterprises established by communities, as a rule, was not distributed among individual households, but was used to pay off various external obligations and, first of all, to pay state taxes. This state can be characterized, taking into account Russia’s serfdom past, as a forced, forced addition. The emergence and sustainability of the community was explained both by natural and climatic factors, forcing the creation of the most adequate organizational and economic structures for joint survival, and by socio-political ones. The centralized Russian state saw the community as the most effective way of interacting with the rural world. This social institution suited everyone and performed truly universal functions, sometimes giving rise to unjustified illusions and hopes.
The Russian community was born long before the emergence of the state. A communal power is a state in which the people own the land, are united in self-governing communities and pay tithes to the government for serving the people.
The primary principle of Russian life is blood kinship in the family, clan, people and the equality of people in the community. A Russian person builds a family of his own free will, families form a community, communities elect Russian authorities. A Russian person is an autocratic master who supports his family and voluntarily works in the Russian community.
A Russian man, the head of a Russian family, fulfilling his duty to the community, must honestly work in the community (peace) with his relatives. This is the highest and primary duty and honor of a Russian. The second duty is the duty to the ancestors, the eternal urge to procreate and free labor. Civil duties are the third duty of a Russian person, which is fulfilled on the condition that the state serves the people and protects their vital interests, including the family and the individual. Under the Russian government, every official is accountable both to the people as a whole and to the community that nominated him.
The essence of community is the election of leaders who are personally responsible to society. The activities of the manager are controlled from below. If he made mistakes or deviations from the norms of society, then such a person was immediately removed from management.
The laws of self-government in the communities were different: “Whatever the city, then the norms, whatever the village, then the custom.” The custom was strictly followed by every member of the community. However, there were several rules and customs common to all of Russia. Let's list them:
1) The main thing is universal justice.
2) The community was formed according to the principle of “family”, but... without a head - a “father”. The “father” was the community meeting - the collective governing body. Where everyone took part.
3) A decision at a community meeting could only be made unanimously
4) The following principle automatically followed from the principle of the Russian family: not a single member of the community could be excluded from it under any circumstances. You were born in a community, or were accepted into it - that’s it, there is no force capable of expelling you from there. True, in an ordinary family, the father could separate his son from himself by giving him part of the property. In a community, on the contrary, its member could leave the community voluntarily, but he was not entitled to any of the common property.
Both in the family and in the community, a person could be calm: no matter what decisions his father or the community made, no one would allow any injustice towards him personally.
5) Non-recognition of personal ownership of land is a sacred Russian idea carried through millennia. Property is only common; the land must be at the disposal of the one who cultivates it.
6) The Russian peasant has always believed that public interest is higher than personal interest, and he not only believed so, but was also guided by this principle. And at secular gatherings they proceeded precisely from the interests of the community, therefore, there could be no disagreements
7) For a peasant, a community is the house in which he lives and his children and grandchildren will live. The ruin of the community is the ruin of him personally. The peasant was responsible with his fate for the decision he made
8) Decisions were made at meetings only when the last person arguing had calmed down.
9) No one forgave anything to the person who went against the world. He certainly paid for his insolence and was often forced to leave the community.
10) The community guaranteed that no one would neglect your personal interest. Since it is in the interests of the community to take into account the interests of all
11) Maintaining justice in the distribution of land is the means of one’s livelihood. Communities had different ways of distributing land.
12) Common to all communities was collective responsibility for external obligations (taxes and recruits). The decision of the community (sentence of peace), in this case, was not subject to appeal (the selected recruit could be taken to the recruiting station tied up).
13) If an outside party (landowner or official), violating laws and customs, inflicted insults on the community, and it was not possible to achieve justice through legal means, then the community decided to revolt or gathered several men and killed the offender, and then the men surrendered to the authorities (the rest constantly collected money and sent them to the convicts - their heroes). Since the marriage was consecrated in the church, this was pleasing to God, and in order not to destroy the family, the state paid for the travel of the wife and children to the place of residence of the convicted person.
14) Meadows, pastures, forests and arable land were common to the entire community.
15) The peasant community, all over the world, built houses for all the families of the community on allocated land in the best place.
16) The population census was carried out every seven years. During this time, the tax was paid unchanged, based on male eaters (in most provinces more accurate records were kept: for a boy - 10 years old - 0.25 allotment; 12 - 0.5; 14 - 0.75; for a man from 20 to 55 - 2 -x allotments, but from 55 - 0.5 allotments, and after 60 years the peasant was freed from both land and taxes).
17) The allotment could consist of strips of land of different types (up to 15), in addition, the strips were located on three fields: spring, winter and fallow. This was not always the optimal way, but it was fair. This is what the community thought (the stripes were designed for the endurance of an ox in one trip).
18) The community promptly responded to family changes every year by transferring plots to each other. The principle was sacredly confessed: only those who cultivate it own the land!
19) To whom, what plot of land was given was decided by lot (in general, in Russia, lots were used in almost any case when something had to be divided)
20) The peasant in the community could not sell his plot; he could rent it out. The community could do this (sell or buy land).
21) Meadows were usually mowed by an artel. Dividing the hay according to the number of people and casting lots to whom will receive what part of the finished hay.
22) Old people and children, if they were left alone, “went around the world” - living for a certain time in turn in each family of the community, dressing with community money. But they could also live in their own hut, then they were brought ready-made food and this was not alms, it was the responsibility of the community. Orphan boys were especially valued, the community monitored their health, these were future recruits - warriors.
23) The community collected more money than the state required in the form of tithes. This money was used for the same purposes that the state is now pursuing by increasing taxes. The community stored bread, built schools and hired teachers, and if it was strong, then doctors and paramedics. In fact, the peasant spent more than was provided for by the government, but he established this difference himself and spent it himself. The central government received money for what only it could do. The rest remained in the community and did not fall into the hands of the bureaucracy.
24) In all Russian communities there was a system of mutual assistance. This help was divided into three categories: the peasant invited the community or part of it to build a house and no one had the right to refuse him or demand anything for this work; if the task turned out to be beyond his strength, then at the end of the work a dinner with drinks was provided for those invited; during the harvest, when every day - a year feeds, and work on Sunday was forbidden by God, the peasants “deceived” Him by helping each other (you can’t work, you can help).
25) The Russian peasant community, being more communist, took into account the laws of human behavior.
1st law. A person acts in such a way that as a result he receives the maximum reward he needs and the minimum punishment.
2nd. A person strives to achieve the result of his activity (Business) with minimal costs for himself.
3rd. A person does only what the authority tells him to do, which rewards and punishes him. A person obeys this authority, it has power over him (the authority is not necessarily people). The one who rewards and punishes has power. A peasant, working in a community, on a plot of land owned by the community, received for his labor not a salary from the boss, but the final result of his labor in full and in kind
26) In the community, the highest governing body is the assembly, circle, gathering of the community, but between them, current affairs were managed by the headman - the executive power of the community.
27) The community did not know mineral fertilizers, receiving crops for centuries.
Thus, the peasant community was a unique community of people, where public interests were mainly taken into account rather than the interests of the individual. Mutual assistance was necessary for survival in climatic conditions, but it represented a brake on the development of man as an individual.
The Russian diaspora is one of the largest and most widespread in the world. Its population today is about 25 - 40 million people, scattered all over the world outside the Russian Federation. It first began to form in the middle of the 19th century, when some of the nobles created a small ethnic community in Paris.
The Russian diaspora received a special expansion during the unrest and destruction of the Russian Empire, as well as during the Civil War and in the early years of the formation of the Soviet Union. In the next 50 years, the Russian diaspora abroad practically did not grow, since migrating from the USSR at that time was problematic.
The second stage of rapid growth occurred during the “thaw” period in the USSR. However, the largest number of migrants joined the diaspora in the 90s and 2000, when the Union collapsed and the economic, political and crime situation in the country left much to be desired. There was also a significant increase in new immigrants in 2011. Since 2014, the Russian diaspora has been constantly increasing due to the increased number of migrants from Russia.
But it is not entirely clear who should be included in the Russian diaspora - ethnic Russians or simply former citizens of the Russian Federation, whether descendants of migrants from the Empire, as well as immigrants from other countries of the former USSR (especially Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan) belong to this diaspora.
The first subject of the Russian Empire who settled permanently in Australia (more precisely, in Tasmania) was a Belarusian, who was arrested in England in 1804 and sent to hard labor in the Australian colonies. After serving his sentence, the prisoner remained to live in the country on a permanent basis.
It is believed that he was the progenitor of the Russian diaspora in Australia. However, according to the colonial authorities of Australia, in 1820 there were already 4 Russian-speaking families living on the continent, consisting of former prisoners, so it is impossible to accurately identify the progenitor of the Russian diaspora.
The massive flow of immigrants from the Russian Empire (later the USSR and the Russian Federation) and the territories under its control began at the end of the 19th century. The first wave of migration lasted 25 years from 1880 to 1905. During this period, Russian Jews mainly moved from the territory of the Baltic states and the South-Western regions of the Empire, fleeing the wave of anti-Semitism that swept Europe at that time.
In 1901, the year the Commonwealth of Australia declared its formal independence from the British Crown, the number of Russians in the country was about 3.5 thousand people.
There were waves of migration during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, unrest and Revolution at the end of the Russian Empire and during the Soviet Union. These were mainly people who disagreed with the current political course of the state, deserters and counter-revolutionaries. The movement to the Green Continent continues today.
Today, about 30 thousand people from the countries of the former USSR live in Australia, and about 60 thousand people are descendants of Russian immigrants.
Today in Australia there are 3 newspapers in Russian and two television programs.
If we talk about the Russian diaspora in New Zealand, it is more numerous in relation to the local population than in Australia (20 thousand Russians per 4.6 million indigenous inhabitants in New Zealand and about 30 thousand Russians per 30 million inhabitants of the Union). The first migrants from Russia to New Zealand appeared somewhere in the middle of the 19th century (there is no exact data).
Today, most of the ethnic community is concentrated in Auckland and Wellington. The country has a Russian cultural center in Christchurch.
The first mentions of Russians in China date back to the 14th century. The main peak occurred during the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the Russo-Japanese War and during the period of unrest and the overthrow of the monarchy in Russia. 
But many Russians became citizens of China not entirely of their own free will, because previously the Russian Empire controlled part of the northern provinces of the Celestial Empire, and after the Soviets came to power, these lands seceded from Russia and for some time were under the control of the Japanese occupation authorities, and later China. However, many Russians left the area.
But also some Russian emigrants considered China as a transit zone for South American countries. During the peak period, the number of Russian immigrants in the Middle Kingdom amounted to 125 thousand people. However, due to the very low standard of living in the country, various unrest, famine and the Cultural Revolution, many migrants moved to other regions or returned to their homeland, which is why their number dropped to 20 thousand people by 1953. And also a big contribution was made by the disdainful attitude of the Chinese towards foreign immigrants, which could be traced until the 80s of the last century.
Today, about 15 - 20 thousand Russians live in China on a permanent basis. China may become an attractive destination for Russians in the foreseeable future, as industry and business are developing at a rapid pace. In addition, the Celestial Empire now treats our compatriots very well.
There is a TV channel that broadcasts 24 hours a day in Russian, several newspapers, as well as the Russian version of the famous Chinese newspaper People's Daily, Russian schools and schools are being opened to adapt to the local environment.
The most “favorite” settlement areas for Russians are Shanghai, Harbin, and Dalian.
Russians in South America
The largest number of Russians in South America in 2019 is concentrated in Argentina and a small part in other countries - Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay. 
The first and second waves of migration to South America were Germans, Jews, as well as representatives of various Slavic nationalities who did not want to serve in the Russian army and/or were persecuted in Russia for some reason. By the end of the second wave (approximately 1905), the number of immigrants from Russia in South America was about 160 thousand people (150 thousand of whom lived in Argentina).
During the third wave of immigration, seasonal workers, mostly peasants, came here from Russia, who subsequently remained here for permanent residence. Just at this time, Orthodox churches and churches began to be actively built in the country; by the end of the third wave, the Russian population in South America ranged from 180 to 220 thousand people.
With the advent of the first unrest in the Russian Empire and the beginning of the October Revolution, the flow of emigrants increased significantly.
The fourth and fifth waves are already less global in nature; they have been going on now, since 1917. In the 4th wave, former prisoners of fascist concentration camps left for South America; their number was only about 10 thousand people.
The fifth wave occurs during the years of perestroika, the collapse of the USSR and the modern period. In the first case, migration was more of an illegal nature, since officially citizens of the Union went to work. Today, about 320 thousand Russians live in South America (of which 300 thousand live in Argentina).
France is home to one of the largest Russian diasporas in the world, numbering approximately 500 thousand people. A certain part of the emigrants and their descendants are Russian Jews who, for various circumstances and reasons, settled in France.
The country also reached a peak of Russian immigration of 1.5 million people. Over time, most of the immigrants moved to neighboring states or returned to their homeland.
The first movement to France from Russia arose in the early to mid-19th century, and continues to this day. The first settlers to France from the Empire were Russian aristocrats who loved to vacation in Nice. And at the beginning of the 20th century, the French experienced rapid population growth thanks to Russian emigration, which amounted to 1.5 million people between 1905 and 1930.
The bulk of the settlers were concentrated in Paris and other large cities of the country. In the 30s, the term “Russian Paris” was even introduced. Various schools in Russian, interest groups and Russian newspapers were organized for emigrants. Unfortunately, no one was seriously involved in adapting the settlers to French society.
During the war, some Russians tried to move to the United States, some were sent to concentration camps during the Nazi occupation of France. After the defeat of the Axis countries, some of the Russian prisoners of concentration camps remained for permanent residence in France and other European countries (most often using not very legal methods). During the Soviet era, until the beginning of Perestroika, there was no significant emigration to France. This time has its own difficulties.
During Perestroika, during the collapse of the USSR and in subsequent periods, there was a serious increase in the movement of Russians into the country.
Petr SmirnovSmirnov Petr Ivanovich
St. Petersburg State University
Professor of the Department of Theory and History and Sociology
Smirnov Petr Ivanovich
Saint-Petersburg State University
Professor of the Chair of Theory and History of Sociology
Email: [email protected]
UDC - 3.30.31.316
RUSSIAN RURAL COMMUNITY: ORIGIN, BASIC FUNCTIONS AND VALUES
ABSTRACT: The article describes the origin and development of the Russian community, gives the author's version of its main values, shows the hypothetical connection between these values and the main functions of the community, and presents ways of self-realization of a person in the community
Key words: Russian community, origin, function, value, self-realization
RUSSIAN RURAL COMMUNITY: THE ORIGIN, MAIN FUNCTIONS AND VALUES
ABSTRACT:This article describes the origin and development of the Russian community, presents author’s version of its core values, illustrates a hypothetical link between these values and community basic functions; and describes ways of human self-realization in the community.
Key words: Russian community, origin, functions, value, self-realization
RUSSIAN RURAL COMMUNITY: ORIGIN, BASIC FUNCTIONS AND VALUES
The literature dedicated to the Russian community is truly immense. The origin of the community, its role in Russian life, the possibility of using communal principles to create a more just society, including the possibility of non-capitalist development of Russia, the influence of community life on the mental makeup of Russian peasants, etc. were considered in the works of historians, economists, philosophers and publicists of various directions and trends. It received attention from Slavophiles and Westerners, revolutionary democrats and staunch supporters of autocracy, populists and Marxists, as well as researchers who eschewed party struggle. This is no coincidence. The Russian rural community had a great influence on the existence of Russia and the Russian people, since it coexisted with the service-domestic civilization and was quite harmoniously “built-in” into it. According to Berdyaev, Russia was a “huge peasant kingdom,” and Russian peasants lived mainly in communities. However, the category “value” was not used as a special theoretical means for analyzing the life of the community. Therefore, in the next two articles it is intended to outline the relationship between the fundamental values and functions of the community and describe the influence of its life activity on the history of the country and the formation of the national character. The immediate goals of this article are a brief description of the origin and development of the Russian community, a statement of the hypothetical relationship of its basic values and functions, as well as ways of self-realization of a person in the community.
Origin and development of the Russian community.
The question of the origin of the community caused great controversy among researchers. In Russian bourgeois historiography of the last century, the concept of the late fiscal-serf origin of the community was popular. In accordance with this concept, the Russian land community was not “native”, arising naturally. The peasants were bound into tax unions - “worlds” - by the state on the principle of mutual responsibility for the convenience of collecting taxes. However, such a view is contradicted by historical analogies. As noted by the famous researcher of land relations in Russia V.P. Danilov, it would be surprising if in Russia the community arose as a phenomenon accompanying serfdom, while in other countries it arose naturally.
The version about the “native” origin of the Russian rural community seems much more convincing. According to this version (according to V.A. Alexandrov), the Russian community went through a number of stages in its development. From its original form, the ancient Russian neighboring community ( Vervy), it evolved through the black-mush community ( parish), characteristic of the period of formation of the Moscow principality, before the actual rural land community, which became the main form of self-organization of Russian peasants in tsarist Russia.
Verv, as the most ancient form of the Russian community, is also known from “Russian Truth”. It united small rural producers of that time and directed their entire economic, public and private life. Such a variety of functions of the community was associated with the development of the lands of the Russian Plain by the Slavs, but the function of economic land use invariably took first place. And later in history, communal traditions played an important role in the life of the Russian peasantry, regardless of the social status of the community members - whether they were free (black-growing) farmers or personally dependent peasants.
Since the 14th century, the peasant community in Rus' has been known under the name volosts, which united neighbors, on behalf of which representatives of the community spoke before the princely administration.
The Chernososhnaya community-volost lived on the basis of the principles of self-government. She herself elected her officials (elders, sotskys, fiftieths, tens), who led public life and monitored the condition of communal lands - wastelands, meadows, forests, water estates. The community disposed of free plots of land that needed to be brought into cultural condition, transferring them to newly arrived settlers or community members separated from the family. However, the lands that had already entered into economic circulation - courtyards, arable and hayfields - were in the private ownership of individual communal households and were passed on by inheritance. The community protected this norm of customary law (household-hereditary land use) in every possible way.
In the XIV-XV centuries, in the Russian principalities there was an intensive process of strengthening private feudal ownership of land. Monasteries and secular feudal lords expanded their possessions both legally, seeking land grants from the supreme authority, and by directly seizing volost lands. The volost communities persistently defended their rights to land through legal means, conducting litigation and often achieving success, but they did not shy away from the use of force to return the land seized from them.
The opposition of the volosts to the transfer of their lands into private feudal ownership was due to very important reasons. In particular, the very fact of changing the legal status of their lands did not meet the interests of the peasants, since this threatened the very existence of the volost as an independent legal and economic unit. And this, in the long term, threatened to change the legal status of the peasants themselves - from personally free people they could turn into dependent ones. But it was also extremely important that the order of land use was changing. And in general, with a change of jurisdiction, the volost could lose certain functions.
It is no coincidence that at the end of the 15th century, when Novgorod lost its political independence, Novgorod communal peasants sought to preserve their territorial organizations after their lands passed to Moscow service people. In some cases, the change of the supreme owner of the land did not affect the interests of the peasants, and local volost communities did not react to this fact. This happened under Ivan III, when the Yaroslavl appanage principality peacefully ceased to exist, the land holdings of local princes became the lands of the Grand Duke, but at first no significant changes occurred in the status of the communities.
The greatest blow to the existence of the black-sown community-volost in central Russia was dealt by the introduction in the 15th-16th centuries. local system - the basis for providing the armed forces of the Moscow state. The local system (as a form of land ownership associated with military service) was created at the expense of the black-growing peasantry of the regions adjacent to Moscow. The Moscow prince simply had no other option. This circumstance ultimately decided the fate of the Black Sowing community. As communal lands passed into local ownership, the community-volost ceased to exist as an independent legal and economic unit, i.e. a state institution directly associated with the central government. However, the community remained as a form of association of peasants, while undergoing serious changes. From a volost it turned into a rural one within the boundaries of a certain estate or fiefdom.
Changes in the legal status of the community meant not only the loss of its direct connection with government institutions. The rural community, becoming more and more subordinate to the will of its owner-landowners, gradually lost some of its economic and managerial functions. In particular, her management activities could only be carried out within the boundaries of the estate. In addition, the community now had less opportunity to allocate to its members the lands they needed, which was associated with an increase in duties in favor of the landowner, an expansion of the landowner's arable land and the allocation of land for the landowner's personal farming.
The decrease in the land fund owned by the community forced it to change the norms of peasant land use. The principle of land ownership has undergone particularly important changes. The community member, as before, owned arable land and hayfields, but no longer according to household-hereditary, but according to household-conditional right. This means that the yard’s ownership of any land was now purely conditional. The peasant used them only as long as he could bear the burden. When a peasant household, for some reason (demographic, for example), could not ensure the fulfillment of the duties and payments imposed on it, part of the tax was removed from it, but accordingly, part of the land was cut off. These lands were transferred to more prosperous households, but again for temporary use, and the previous owner could, in a changed situation, demand their return.
This practice of land use had the consequence that during the 17th century the former community-volost turned into a land-redistribution community in a landowner's village with a conditional right to own communal lands. In the 18th century this type of community became dominant in central Russia on the lands of the landowners-nobles. At the same time, the peculiarities of farming in individual estates also significantly affected the functions of the community. In quitrent estates, the community retained great rights to dispose of the land, but in corvee estates its role was reduced to almost nothing, since the economic use of the land was determined by the will of the landowner.
The noted changes in peasant land use and the formation of a land distribution community were of a regional nature at that time. In the Russian North, where private feudal ownership of land was not widespread, the original community-volost was preserved and developed. As a result, different types of peasant communities with different principles of land use appeared in Russia, which was determined, first of all, by the presence or absence of serfdom among peasants in a particular area. The North Russian, Ural, and Siberian peasantry, as well as a significant part of the South Russian peasantry (“odnodvortsy”, officially included in the state peasantry in the 18th century) retained the principle of household-hereditary land use in their volost communities. The peasantry of central Russia, who found themselves in serfdom, ran their households on the basis of the conditional household principle of ownership using equal redistribution of land in the rural redistribution community.
Tsarist government in the 18th century. tried to spread the system of communal land redistribution in the northern provinces inhabited by state peasants. But this undertaking did not have much success at that time; the peasants steadily maintained occupational and hereditary land use. Even at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, in the North Russian, as well as in the Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod provinces, unlimited communal land use remained. And the land magnates the Stroganovs, who owned huge estates in the Northern Urals, in the first half of the 19th century came to the idea of the need to provide communities with broad rights to dispose of communal lands; peasants were given the right to sell, bequeath, and mortgage their plots within the estates.
Peasant land use in Siberia was associated in its principles with Northern Russian communal forms. At the initial stage of the development of Siberia, peasants formed communities to clear land, which subsequently remained in collective ownership. The peasants distributed the cleared land among themselves depending on the labor invested. These plots passed into hereditary ownership on the basis of customary law. Land clearing communities evolved over time into rural communities that managed economic life within a single village. These communities received new settlers, set deadlines for field work, and resolved disputes.
Individual villages, geographically adjacent to the settlements, formed a community-volost. The elected volost administration monitored the safety of the complex of lands assigned to individual villages in the process of their development, and considered land disputes between individual villages and peasants. She also decided on the allocation of land to certain villages and the redistribution of land between them, and leased out vacant land.
The household-hereditary principle of land ownership was preserved quite steadily in Siberia, which was facilitated by the abundance of free lands, which were initially seized, developed, and then officially assigned to individual villages or households. However, from the middle of the 18th century the situation changed. When, as the population grew around individual villages, there was little free land left, arable land could already be redistributed by the community. But more often the lack of arable land was overcome by forming leases on hereditary ownership.
At the end of the 19th century, after the reforms of the 1860s, the position of communal land use strengthened. Communities were recognized as subjects of the current law, and the government did not allow the development of private peasant ownership of land. Under these conditions, communities of different types (while retaining some features of regional originality) evolved towards the classic redistribution land community, which was greatly facilitated by population growth and the resulting shortage of land. The administrative functions of the community became increasingly stronger. In particular, the rights of borrowers to dispose of the plots they had developed were limited, the right of peasants to sell their estates was limited, although courtyard plots of land from time immemorial were considered the property of the peasant household, the community established more and more complete control over hayfields, etc. The attempt made by P.A. Stolypin to destroy the redistribution community by transferring the land into private ownership of the peasants, thereby excluding the land plots of individual households from its custody, was not a decisive success. The community peasants themselves were for the most part afraid to break with the community.
During the initial period of Soviet power, the community survived. It was viewed as a union of free, equal users of nationalized land. The choice of forms of land use was left to the communal peasants themselves, who for the most part adhered to the traditional rules of land redistribution.
The rural community has shown amazing resilience throughout Russian history, adapting to a variety of conditions. And until the thirties of the 20th century, the community remained a body of peasant self-government on the land, regulating individual farming. Only the state policy of creating collective farms led to the final elimination of rural self-government and to the absolute nationalization of village land funds, which were no longer managed by peasants, but by local government bodies.
Fundamental values and functions of the Russian community.
It is not possible to take into account all the uniqueness of the forms determined by the specific historical and geographical conditions in which the Russian rural community empirically manifested itself. Therefore, further we will talk about the ideal type of the redistribution Russian rural community, the functions and values of which need to be recreated. With the help of this ideal type, it seems possible to show the “integration” of the Russian community into the work-domestic Russian civilization, to take into account the influence of the community on the formation of the Russian national character, the pattern of the emergence of certain personal types, etc. The version proposed below regarding the most important values and functions of the community is debatable.
The first and most important value of the Russian community- herself community, "peace" that associated with a number of essential community functions in the life of the country and people.
home from functions - function survival. The historical fate of Russia, especially during the formation of the Moscow state, in every possible way contributed to the formation among Russian people of the idea of the collective (including the community) as a more important value compared to the individual. Before the pacification of the steppe, in the conditions of constant pressure from the East (as well as from the West, and in terms of ideological influence the latter was even more dangerous), it was possible to survive and remain the master of one’s native land only through collective efforts and by sacrificing the interests of the individual to collective interests. Only this type of behavior allowed the largest number of Russian people to survive, and the Russian people to survive as a distinctive ethnic group. It is not at all accidental that the numbers of Russians grew fantastically quickly after the external danger had been eliminated to a decisive extent. If during the time of Ivan the Terrible the population of the Moscow state was about 5.5 million people, then by the reign of Nicholas II the number of Russians proper was at least 100 million. And this despite the terrible losses during the Time of Troubles, during the era of Peter’s reforms, due to constant hunger strikes, epidemics, and numerous wars. None of the European nations achieves such an increase in numbers over the same period. And the role of the community in this process is extremely large, since it was the main type of social organization of Russian peasants.
Second most important function communities - function resettlement ( or colonization). The community was perfectly suited for the development of the vast wild spaces of Eurasia, which was the historical task of the Russian people. Settlement by “flight” (Klyuchevsky), when an uninhabited area without roads or regular communications stretched between the old and new settlements, turned the community into a kind of “colonization unit.” In order to develop a wild forest desert, a human association must have a certain degree of self-sufficiency, the ability for expanded reproduction of a full-fledged population and rapid mutual assistance. In the harsh Russian conditions, these tasks were optimally solved by the community.
Third from these functions- function protection of land holdings peasants against encroachments of other landowners on their lands. Only by uniting could they resist large landowners in endless disputes over land, although not always with success. Numerous lawsuits between the peasant world and the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, which was advancing on communal peasant lands in the 15th - 16th centuries, are known. .
Finally, the community arranged legal and economic circulation of land, transferring land plots into the ownership of individual peasants and setting deadlines for field work.
Given these functions, it is clear why the community itself was an important value. In addition, in an implicit form, the Russian community carried within itself the highest universal values. In particular, for the Russian peasant it represented a concrete embodiment of such value as humanity(human race) or at least native people. By making efforts to preserve the community, “suffering for peace,” a person contributed to the preservation of the entire people as a whole.
The community also specified another highest value for its members - society, often understood as Motherland or Fatherland. Man as an individual, as a social being, is possible only in society. For the process of socialization, the formation of personality, society is necessary for a person as a decisive precondition. But in order not to lose his roots, to maintain contact with his ancestors, he needs a society of a certain type, close to the one in which his ancestors lived. Otherwise, there is a danger of mass “mankurtization”, which is fraught with all sorts of troubles (the image of a mankurt was introduced by Ch. Aitmatov: a mankurt is a person devoid of memory and ready to slavishly serve the owner). Consequently, the evolution of society should be quite slow. And if the community reproduced Russian people as Russians, it had to be kept and preserved by them as a fundamental value. This was so, since it was noted that in the last third of the 19th century, in some places where the redistribution of land per soul was introduced, the peasants agreed to it not for selfish reasons (the opportunity to take advantage of other people’s property), but in an effort to preserve the community as a form of life. And in Siberia, where at first peasants often ran pseudo-farm, “borrowed” farming, as the population density grew, the community was restored as a social institution for regulating land relations of peasants and interaction with state authorities.
The community is also associated with its most important functions. second highest value - myself community member in both of its guises: both as a biological being, whose life is needed by the “world” for reproduction and existence, and as a subject of activity, a “worker”, whose efforts ease the common burden.
Taking into account both hypostases, it is impossible to let a person die of hunger, especially an orphan child (for “the orphan is fed, and the worker of the world grows”). But a lonely, helpless person must be supported, provided with food and shelter. To do this, he must “walk around the world,” feeding more or less alternately from the peasants and doing feasible work around the house. And in case of serious need, an able-bodied peasant could resort to a widespread and very unique type of social mutual assistance in Rus' - “going to pieces.” The essence of this method is that the peasant, who at the moment did not have any bread, walked around neighboring courtyards and villages, asking for bread. And he was served “pieces”, larger or smaller parts of the loaf. This was not a loan accepted in countries of market civilization, because there could be no talk of any repayment of the debt; the very concept of “debt” is inapplicable in this case. Nor was it begging, which is a kind of craft. And if with the help of “pieces” the peasant managed to “get by”, he found work and bought bread, then he “returned” it to any other peasant who found himself in a difficult situation.
As for the “credit” that existed in the Russian village, it also did not resemble Western Europe. Market credit does not intend to turn the debtor in case of non-payment of debt into a source of cheap labor. On the contrary, kulak “credit” in the community had hardly the main goal of enslaving the debtor so that he could be used as an object of exploitation.
Third value, recognized by the community - justice, understood as the original social equality based on the equality of people (at least men) in relation to the land. In itself, this value is instrumental, but in the community it has acquired the status of a goal, which can be considered a distortion of the “normal” hierarchy of values.
According to the peasants, the land is “God’s”, therefore any person born on it (within the community) has the right to his own, and equal to everyone else, share of the land and all its wealth that the “world” owns. However, the attitude towards the land as a “gift of God” is not specifically Russian. On the African continent, in a number of city-communities, it was also considered “God’s gift”, available to each and every citizen of a given urban and rural community. Probably, such an attitude towards the land is characteristic of society at a certain stage of development. In any case, regular redistribution of land in accordance with the requirements of equal land use was recorded back in the 3rd - 1st millennia BC. e. in the countries of Mesopotamia, Western Asia and Egypt.
Real information on the redistribution of land in Russia shows that in the community justice was understood not as an abstract principle, but as a practically operating imperative. In particular, the equal redistribution of land per person would have been impossible in one of the localities where it was carried out for the first time if it had not been supported by 42 percent of those peasants for whom it was directly disadvantageous, since it led to a reduction in the allotment already in their use. The majority of those who suffered significant damage during the redistribution forgot their resentment and argued, along with the others, that “it’s better than a heart-to-heart – it’s not necessary: everyone is now equal, now there’s at least some bread, and we eat everything, but in the old way (i.e. without redistribution - P.S..) many would now have to die.”
The second basis for equality in relation to land is the equality of state tax in accordance with the size of the land plot. The land plot could change its owners as much as desired, but it always remained part of the “worldly” plot and the “world” tried to prevent the plot from being empty. It was noted that as society feudalized, the land plot acquired duties, and the right to use it was combined with the obligation to bear taxes.
Thus, both from the point of view of God’s and human justice
an individual could only be the owner of the land, but not its full and undivided owner. The supreme stewards of the earth remained “peace.” Any transactions with land - leasing, sale, seizure for temporary use - were carried out in principle with the consent of the community, although in practice this principle was constantly violated in accordance with the temporary rules of customary law. But in decisive cases, the last word always remained with the community. No one dared to “give his plot of land to a stranger, not for one year, not for one summer: if he gives it away, he loses his plot, which is taken away into the world.”
Therefore, it is partly true to note that on the “soil of a communal structure” it is very easy for “complete disdain for the person to grow.” Although the author of the quoted words here is somewhat exaggerating, since the community still took into account the interests of the community member as a worker and an individual, although significantly limiting them. But the community really neglected the person as a subject of economic activity.
In this regard, we can name such an additional value as the power of “peace”. It is clear that individual community members tried to use this power in their own interests, and they often succeeded, but the very principle of the supreme power of the world remained quite stable. It was supported by all community traditions. The power of the world was manifested primarily in the disposal of the land. On the basis of general decisions, the main field work was also carried out, forced and uniform crop rotations were introduced, which was largely due to the conditions for keeping livestock. The peasant was obliged to harvest the crops on time and manage haymaking, since the field and meadow were then used as pasture. Such economic practices in the community limited the freedom of the peasant to manage his own farm, thereby preventing the development of individual skill in agriculture. There was also an informal court of old men, which decided many issues of customary law.
Gaining social significance in the community . People for the most part cannot live as social beings without receiving social recognition and without achieving social significance on a “legal” and “moral” basis. Otherwise, massive degradation of personality, the transformation of people into social nonentities and their loss of incentive to activity are inevitable. How did a person get what he was looking for in the Russian community? What legal and moral ways of gaining social significance existed in it? What modes of significance were available to the Russian peasant in the community?
Firstly, people who met the moral ideal of the peasants turned out to be especially significant, bearers of righteousness or even holiness(which was sometimes attributed to holy fools, “blessed ones”). Faith was an indispensable condition for righteousness. They judged a person’s faith by visiting church, observing fasts and rituals, going on pilgrimages, reading daily prayers, but especially by observing moral standards in general. “You don’t have a cross,” they said to someone who committed an unworthy act. On the contrary, “lives like a god,” “lives like a Christian,” they said about merciful and conscientious people. Young people were taught to attend church. This was followed not only by the family, but by the entire community as a whole.
Russian peasants put forward a number of figures who, in one way or another, strived for a righteous life. The most common type were pilgrims. Leaving the community for pilgrimage was a stable and widespread practice throughout the entire territory of Russian settlement. Moreover, the journey itself, in order to be pleasing to God, had to be quite difficult.
Less common were the so-called cell attendants, i.e. people who, for some reason, have decided to limit their communication with the world without leaving their homes. They themselves or their relatives built special hut-cells in which cell attendants would retire. Some of them could take part in field and household work, dine with their families, others rarely left their cells. But all the cell attendants strictly observed fasts, and others always ate only lean food.
Peasant girls striving for a righteous life became blueberries, whose position was close to that of the cell attendants. To become a blueberry, you had to take a vow of celibacy in your youth, while the suitors were still getting married. Otherwise the girl was considered century-old, i.e. remaining a virgin not by vow, but spontaneously. In a conflict situation, the community supported a girl who wanted to become a blueberry against the wishes of her parents.
Figures also emerged from the peasant environment elders(spiritual ascetics, according to the people, bearers of holiness). It happened that the future elder received his first spiritual lessons in the family, in the cell of an older relative, followed by a pilgrimage to holy places, hermitage and cell service in his native land. Other famous spiritual figures began with pilgrimage, then took a vow of obedience, and became elders or abbots in monasteries. Numerous biographies of famous ascetics, as well as monastic chronicles, speak of the close connection between spontaneous popular piety and outstanding spiritual ascetics. The influence of the elders on the spiritual life of Russia, including on figures of Russian culture, is simply enormous.
Secondly, this fame, fame, acquired most often through “suffering”, “feat” in the name of peace. “To suffer for the world” means to perpetuate one’s name as a truly moral person and to gain authority in worldly affairs, because fellow villagers have confidence that this person will judge the matter “fairly” and for the common good. We listened to the “honored man” and still listen to him.
Thirdly, this knowledge, wisdom, related to the spiritual culture of the people, that is, knowledge of legends, epics and customs, rules of behavior in society, as well as knowledge of economic practices - the timing and rules of field work, procurement of supplies, use of forests, etc. Often such knowledge was associated with mastery of words. In the Russian village “there was a cult of the word”; its possession to some extent determined a person’s social status, was a reason for respect, and for others “an object of envy.” To this we can add knowledge of written literacy.
Table
Similarities between the characteristics of the Russian service-domestic civilization and the Russian rural community
| № | Signs and properties | Office-home civilization in Russia | Russian rural community |
| 1 | Factors of occurrence | External danger and other reasons | Natural conditions, external danger, colonization function |
| 2 | Core Value | Faith, Tsar, Fatherland | Community, community member, justice |
| 3 | Leading activity | Service | Service (state tax, corvee, quitrent), collective |
| 4 | Availability of modes of significance for humans | Available All as a representative of an estate based on service | Available Not all due to the dominance of the value “justice” |
| 5 | Leading modes | Power, glory, holiness, knowledge, including sacred | Holiness, glory, folk wisdom, posterity |
| 6 | Less accessible mods | Wealth, economy, skill | Wealth, market economy, skill in agriculture |
| 7 | Social recognition procedure | Personal expertise | Personal expertise |
| 8 | Instrumental values | Discipline and duty | Natural and spiritual qualities, hard work |
| 9 | Farm | Homemade | Homemade |
| 10 | Development | Uneven (ideally slow) | Slow (under pressure from external circumstances) |
| 11 | Existence | Short-lived | Long-term |
| 12 | Relations with neighbors | Mainly defensive |
Fourthly, economic activities in and around the house (garden, apiary, etc.), homeliness, as well as the craft accompanying peasant work, in general the ability to do anything, talent. But skillful farming did not involve making a profit; it was aimed only at providing the means of subsistence for the peasant family. It was believed that “the Russian peasant farmer is a bad agricultural entrepreneur... he, as a representative of the natural economic regime, is deprived - as a general rule - of that desire for higher profit that animates every entrepreneur. ...He gets money only for the state and for the landowner; he himself is indifferent to it.” In other words, the peasant economy was domestic in type.
Fifthly, happiness, luck, fortune, manifested in different ways (find a treasure, raise many hard-working sons, reap a rich harvest, etc.).
Finally, natural and social qualities: heroic strength, always respected by the people, beauty, intelligence, dexterity, as well as diligence, the ability to work hard.
Thus, social significance in a community could be obtained on legal and morally justified grounds only through its highest modes - knowledge, holiness, glory (and in very specific forms) and through natural and social qualities. In the system of values of the Russian community there was a large gap between personal and natural qualities, on the one hand, and the highest modes of social significance, coupled with the highest universal values, on the other.
In themselves, the highest modes of social significance are quite acceptable as ways of human self-realization. Moreover, it is necessary for society and for individuals that holiness, knowledge, glory be available to any person striving for them. But without core economic activity and without the values associated with it, society is, as it were, rootless. Higher modes are not enough to make its development sustainable (in conditions of a sufficient amount of natural resources), because material activity, no matter what they say about it, forms the basis of all social life. In addition, the lack of a legal opportunity to achieve wealth, economy, and mastery in the peasant business deprived people inclined to achieve them of morally justified goals in life and worthy ways to achieve them. Not everyone agrees to indulge in deception, violence, etc., for the sake of wealth or a well-established economy. Perhaps this is why Russian people often became “hostages of the sublime, striving for the splendor of heights without proper equipment.”
In general, the signs and properties of the Russian community were in many ways similar to those of the Russian service-domestic civilization, as can be judged from the table above. The greatest similarity is observed in the factors of origin, higher and less accessible modes of social significance, the leading type of activity, and the type of economy. There are similarities in relations with neighbors (although the scale and methods of protective actions are different). Both social organisms differ most in terms of “duration of existence” and “speed of development”, which is associated with various reasons, some of which are expected to be covered later. But the main conclusion can be drawn that, due to the similarity of many signs and properties, the Russian rural community integrated quite harmoniously into the Russian service-domestic civilization, and the life activity of both social organisms formed the mental makeup and norms of behavior of the Russian person, different from Western European ones. The most important consequences of the functioning of the Russian rural community based on its fundamental values and some of its properties will be highlighted in the next article
Literature
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The community, apparently, is a natural and necessary form of self-organization of people when solving such problems as developing a new territory, protecting common interests, maintaining law and order, ensuring personal safety, etc., when for some reason the national authorities and right. The experience of colonization of the North American continent by white settlers, in particular the United States, very clearly reflects the role of communities of various kinds in solving these problems.
Firstly, the newly minted Americans, moving to the West, organized “migrant communities” (for protection from the Indians and to provide mutual assistance along the way). Such a community was a “wagon caravan”, the length of which could be up to three miles, and the total value of the cargo transported was $200,000.
Secondly, during the economic development of the land, “application clubs” were organized to protect the interests of the first settlers. Indeed, from the point of view of formal law, people who occupied land plots were squatters, i.e. applicants for land ownership by virtue of the very fact of occupying the land first, without proper legal registration, which was constantly delayed. To ensure that the occupied lands were not taken away from the first settlers, claim clubs were organized, which practically guaranteed the right to own the land for the first owner.
Thirdly, “communal communities” were also formed in gold mines. With the help of “vigilance committees” and judicial decisions, which were often made by the entire community, personal safety was ensured, property was protected, and sentences were carried out. In general, gold prospecting was a collective activity. “The Lonely Seeker” is more of a myth than a real figure.
We will not touch here on the great theoretical debate about the origins of the Russian peasant community, which has been going on for decades. It was natural and fully consistent with the general direction of modern bourgeois science, hostile to primitive communism, that the “discovery” of the Russian professor Chicherin in 1858, according to which the land community in Russia was not at all a natural historical product, but was only an artificial consequence of the fiscal policy of tsarism, was welcomed by German scientists received universal approval. Chicherin gives us new evidence that liberal scientists are even less suitable as historians than their reactionary colleagues. While in Western Europe, since the time of Maurer, the theory of so-called individual settlement was finally abandoned, as a result of which communities allegedly arose only in the 16th and 17th centuries, Chicherin accepts this hypothesis for Russia. At the same time, Chicherin derives communal cultivation and mandatory crop rotation from the patchwork of plots, communal land tenure from border disputes, the social and legal functions of the community from mutual responsibility for the poll tax introduced in the 16th century - in a word, he very liberally puts the whole chain of historical events, cause and effect. But no matter what opinion one holds regarding the origin of the peasant community in Russia and its long history, in any case it must be admitted that it survived throughout the long history of serfdom and even after its abolition until recently. Here we are only interested in her fate in the 19th century.
When Tsar Alexander II carried out his so-called “liberation of the peasants,” the landowners sold the peasants, quite according to the Prussian model, their own land. At the same time, the landowners received from the treasury a large ransom in securities for the worst land that supposedly belonged to them, while the peasants for this “granted” land were assigned a debt in the amount of 897 million rubles, which had to be returned to the treasury from 6% in redemption payments for 49 years. But this land was not provided to individual peasant families for private ownership, as in Prussia, but was given to entire communities for public ownership without the right to sell or pledge it. The community was entrusted with mutual responsibility for redemption payments and all taxes, but at the same time it was free in the distribution of taxes between individual members. Such orders were established on the peasant lands of the vast Great Russia. In the early 90s, all land ownership in European Russia (except Poland, Finland and the Don Army region) was distributed as follows: state-owned lands, consisting mainly of huge forest spaces of the north and wastelands covered 150 million dessiatines, appanage lands - 7 million dessiatines, monastic and city lands - at least 9 million dessiatines; private land ownership amounted to 93 million dessiatines, of which only so/o belonged to the peasants, and the rest to the nobility; 131 million dessiatines were in the communal ownership of peasants.Back in 1900, 122 million dessiatines in Russia belonged to peasant communities and only 22 million were in the private ownership of peasants.
If you look closely at the economy of the Russian peasantry in this vast area, as it was conducted until recently, and partly even now, then you can easily recognize in it the typical features of a communal union, which could be observed at all times both in Germany and in Africa , both off the banks of the Ganges and in Peru. The arable land was divided, while the lee, meadows and waters constituted a common possession (almenda). With the general predominance of the primitive three-field system, both spring and winter fields were divided according to the quality of the land into plots (“maps”), and the plots into separate strips. Spring plots were usually distributed in April, and winter plots in June. As a result of careful adherence to the uniform distribution of land, striping developed so much that in Moscow province, for example, on average, spring and winter fields were divided into 11 plots, so that each peasant had to cultivate at least 22 scattered strips. The community usually set aside plots that were cultivated for the emergency needs of the community, or it set up reserve granaries for the same purpose, into which individual members brought grain. Concern for the technical progress of the economy came down to the fact that each peasant family could use its plot for 10 years, with the obligation to fertilize it, or in each plot strips were previously allocated, which were fertilized and distributed only once every 10 years. For the most part, flax fields, orchards and vegetable gardens were subject to the same routine.
The community, that is, the village gathering, distributed meadows and pastures for community herds, hired shepherds, built fences, organized the protection of fields, established a cultivation system, the timing of individual field work, and the timing and method of redistribution. As for the frequency of redistributions, there was great diversity. In one Saratov province, for example, in 1878, out of 278 surveyed villages, almost half made redistribution annually, and the remaining half every 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 11 years, while thirty-eight communities that applied fertilizer did not redistribute at all.
The most remarkable thing about the Russian rural community is the way the land is distributed. What reigned here was not the principle of equal allotments by lot, as among the ancient Germans, and not the principle of the size of the needs of a given family, as among the Peruvians, but only the principle of tax ability. From the time of the “liberation of the peasants,” the tax interests of the treasury determined the entire life of the village; the entire structure of the village revolved around taxes. The basis for taxation for the tsarist government was the so-called “revision souls,” that is, the entire male population of the community, without distinction of age, as it was established every 20 years, since the first peasant census under Peter the Great, through the famous “revisions” that caused horror in the Russian people and served as the reason that entire villages fled.
The government taxed villages according to the number of “revision souls,” while the community distributed this general tax among peasant households according to labor force. And according to the tax capacity, calculated in this way, the distribution of allotments was made among households. Thus, since 1861, a land allotment in Russia was considered not as the basis for the peasant’s subsistence, but as a basis for taxation: the allotment was not a benefit for which an individual peasant could claim, but rather a duty that the community, in the course of public service, assigned to the peasant.
Therefore, there is nothing more original than the distribution of land by a peasant gathering in Russia. Protests against too large plots could be heard on all sides; Poor families without adequate labor, with a predominance of female and young members, due to their lack of power, were generally freed from allotments as a mercy, while the rich peasants were forced by the poorest mass of the peasantry to take the largest allotments. The tax burden that stood at the center of Russian village life was exceptionally great. Redemption payments were supplemented by: poll tax, community tax, church tax, salt tax, etc. In the 80s, the poll and salt taxes were abolished, but despite this, the tax burden was so great that it absorbed all economic means of the peasantry. According to statistics from the 90s, 70% of the peasantry extracted less than the subsistence level from their plots, 20% were able to feed themselves, but were not able to keep livestock, and only about 9% of the peasants extracted surplus beyond their own needs and sold it. That is why, after the “liberation of the peasants,” tax arrears became a constant occurrence in the Russian countryside. Already in the 70s it turned out that with an average annual poll tax receipt of 50 million rubles, the annual amount of arrears was no less than H million. After the abolition of the poll tax, the poverty of the Russian village further increased due to the fact that at the same time, starting in the 80s, indirect taxes were extremely increased. In 1904, tax arrears amounted to 127 million rubles and, due to the complete impossibility of collecting them and the revolutionary ferment, were added up. Taxes not only absorbed almost the entire income of the peasant economy, but forced peasants to look for side earnings. On the one hand, they were seasonal field work, which even now, even during the harvest, causes a real migration of peoples in central Russia, and the strongest men from the villages go to the landowners' estates and are hired here as rural workers, while their own tiny strips are cultivated weak forces of old people, women and teenagers. On the other hand, they were attracted to the city and the factory industry. Thus, in the central industrial region, groups of seasonal workers were formed who, by winter, went to the cities, heading mainly to textile factories, in order to return to the village with earnings in the spring for field work. And finally, in many areas handicrafts or occasional agricultural trades arose, such as transporting and sawing firewood. And despite all this, the large mass of the Russian peasantry eked out a miserable existence. Not only the fruits of agriculture, but also all incidental industrial income were absorbed by taxes. The peasant world, bound by mutual responsibility for taxes, was endowed by the state with the strictest powers in relation to individual members. Thus, for example, the world could send arrears to wage labor and confiscate their earnings; it could also refuse to issue its members a passport, without which the peasant could not take a step out of the village. In addition, the world could subject persistent underborrowers to corporal punishment. And the Russian village in the vast expanse of central Russia presented a curious picture from time to time. When the tax executors arrived in the village, a procedure began for which the tsar’s wife invented the technical term “extortion of arrears.” village gathering, the “arrears” had to take off their pants, lie down on a bench, after which other members of the community took turns whipping them with rods until they bled. The groans and loud cries of the flogged, including bearded fathers of families and gray-haired elders, rushed after the authorities, who, after the feats they had performed, rushed in troikas with bells to another village to do the same thing there. Peasants often escaped public execution by committing suicide. An equally original consequence of these conditions was the so-called “tax beggary”: old, impoverished peasants went around the world to collect money to pay taxes. This community, turned into a press for squeezing out taxes, was strictly protected by the state. The 1881 law states, for example, that entire communities can sell peasant land only in cases where this is decided by two-thirds of the peasant votes, and the consent of the ministers of the interior, finance and appanages was also required. Individual peasants could sell even their own inherited plots only to members of their community. Peasants were prohibited from mortgaging their lands. Under Alexander III, the village community was completely deprived of its autonomy and was placed under the supervision of zemstvo chiefs, reminiscent of the Prussian Landrat. All resolutions of the village meeting had to be approved by these officials. Land redistributions were carried out under their control, as well as taxation and collection of taxes. The 1893 law makes a partial concession to the spirit of the times and allows redistribution only once every 12 years. But at the same time, leaving the community requires its consent, and its precondition is the payment of that part of the redemption payments that falls to the share of the person leaving.
Despite all this artificial legislative framework into which the village community was squeezed, despite the tutelage of three ministries and a whole host of officials, it was impossible to prevent the disintegration of the community. The heavy burden of taxes, the collapse of the peasant economy due to side agricultural and waste industries, the lack of land, especially pastures and forests, which the nobility mostly seized for themselves when the peasants were liberated, and, finally, the lack of land for cultivation due to population growth - all this caused in life In the village community, important phenomena of two kinds: flight to the cities and the emergence of usury in the village itself. Since the land plot, together with the side income, was supposed to serve only as a means to cover taxes, and the peasant was in fact not able to achieve even this, not to mention satisfying even his most basic needs, being in the community turned for him into an iron chain hanging around his neck. Getting rid of this chain became a natural desire of the poorest mass of the community members. Hundreds of fugitives were caught by the police as undocumented tramps and returned to the community, where, as an example to others, they were flogged on the bench by their fellow community members. But the rods and the passport system turned out to be powerless against the mass exodus of peasants who, in the dark night, fled from the hell of their “village communism” to the city, to finally dissolve here in the sea of the industrial proletariat. Others, who were not allowed to escape by family or other circumstances, tried to legally obtain their way out of the community. But for this it was necessary to pay off the redemption debt. And then the moneylender came to the rescue. The very burden of taxes and the need to sell grain on the most unfavorable terms to pay them very early pushed the Russian peasant into the arms of the moneylender. Periodic need and crop failures invariably forced people to turn to a moneylender.
And finally, the very way out from under the yoke of the community in most cases was possible only if the peasant put on the yoke of the usurer, pledging to pay him tribute or work for him for an indefinite period. While poor peasants sought to leave the community in order to get rid of poverty, rich peasants left the community in order to get rid of mutual responsibility for non-receipt of taxes from poor peasants. But even in those cases when rich peasants did not formally leave the community, village moneylenders were mostly recruited from them. They formed a cohesive influential group at the village gathering and, taking advantage of the fact that the poor owed them and depended on them, forced them at the gatherings to vote according to the wishes of the rich. Thus, within the bosom of the village community, formally based on equality and public land ownership, class stratification clearly emerged; The small but influential rural bourgeoisie was opposed by the dependent and virtually proletarianized peasant masses.
And finally, the disintegration of the community, crushed by taxes, corroded by usury, split internally, was also revealed externally. Famine and peasant riots became a periodic phenomenon in Russia in the 1980s, mercilessly affecting the internal provinces and having the inevitable consequence of severe executions and military “pacification.” The Russian village became the scene of terrible starvation and bloody massacres. The Russian peasant experienced the bitter fate of the Hindu peasant, with the only difference that instead of Orissa, the scene of action here was Saratov, Samara and other Volga provinces. When in 1904-1905 In Russia, the revolution of the urban proletariat finally broke out, the previously completely chaotic peasant unrest weighed with all its weight as a political factor on the scales of the revolution for the first time, and the agrarian question became its central problem. Now, when the peasant movement with the slogan of the land filled the noble estates with fiery lava, burning the “noble nests”, when the workers’ party formulated the needs of the peasantry, putting forward revolutionary demands for the expropriation of state and privately owned lands and their free transfer to the peasants, now only tsarism finally refused his agrarian policy, which he pursued with iron tenacity for centuries. The community could not be saved from destruction; I had to give it up. Already in 1902, it was necessary to abandon the basis of the village community in its specific Russian form, namely, it was necessary to abolish mutual responsibility for taxes. True, this event was prepared by the development of the financial economy of tsarism itself. The treasury could easily refuse mutual responsibility for direct taxes after indirect taxes reached unprecedented levels. So, for example, in the budget of 1906, with an ordinary income of 2,020 million rubles, only 148 million came from direct taxes, and 1,100 million from indirect taxes, of which 558 million fell on the wine monopoly alone, which was introduced “ liberal" Minister Witte to combat alcoholism. For the accurate receipt of this tax, the most reliable mutual guarantee was poverty, hopelessness of the situation and ignorance of the peasant masses. In 1905-1906 the remaining part of the redemption payments was halved, and in 1907 it was completely eliminated.
And the “agrarian reform” of 1907 openly set itself the goal of strengthening small peasant private property; the means to this was to be the division of state and appanage lands and parts of large landholdings into small plots.
Thus, the proletarian revolution of the 20th century, even in its first, unfinished phase, immediately eliminated the last remnants of both serfdom and the peasant community artificially preserved by tsarism.