THE PEASANT AND THE LAND

CHAPTER XIV

THE PEASANT AND THE LAND

Moscow looms large in the Soviet

Union. It dominates Russia and casts

its shadow on the other countries of the

world. But Moscow and Leningrad and the other towns are but a few islands in a sea of villages, For Russia, like India, is

essentially rural and agricultural. Eighty

per cent of her population live in villages

and seventy five per cent of her working

population is engaged in the cultivation

of the soil.

Tremendous efforts have been made to

industrialise the country but for long years Russia is bound to be mainly agricultural.

To understand her therefore one must go

to the villages and see the peasant at his

work. And to measure the gains and

losses of the Soviet regime one must see

the difference it has made to the peasants.

But the very vastness of the country

makes this enquiry very difficult. Condi-

tions vary and what is true of the villages

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near Moscow may be utterly false for more distant villages. There was indeed a report a year or two ago that a party of explorers in the Siberian forests had suddenly come across a settlement of 1500 persons entirely cut off from the rest of the world. They had not heard of the Great War; they did not know of the Russian Revolution. They thought that the Czar was still ruling them:

The réport is hardly credible although it

appeared in a Leningrad newspaper. But

whether itis fanciful or merely exaggerated it gives us some idea of the diversity of conditions in the Soviet Union,

It is well-known that serfdom existed

in Russia till not long ago. The last of

the edicts liberating the serfs was issued

in 1863. At that date out of a total

population of sixty millions nearly fifty

millions were serfs of various kinds, either on state lands or on the lands of the royal family or with private landowners. During the period of serfdom the proprietor had almost complete legal power to make his

serfs do what he liked  and to punish them

with lashes and blows. He could also

send a disobedient serf to Siberia.

Emancipation did not bring great relief

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to the serfs. They usually had little land

and it was not good and the village was

burdened with the price of the land or the

rent of it which had to be paid to the old

landlord. The state helped outright pur-

chases by means of loans but the burden

continued. The people who benefited most by the new arrangement were the landlords who got hard cash and freedom from all  worry.

Soon after, the revolutionary movement

was carried to the villages but it met with

poor response there. The peasant in

Russia, as in India’ did not appreciate or

understand vague ideas of freedom. What he wanted was land and lighter taxes and protection from oppression. We find in the stories of some famous Russian novelists descriptions of this period and how young revolutionaries were suspected by the peasantry and sometimes even handed over to the police.

After the Russo-Japanese war the

peasants arose in many places and riots

and disorders spread. They were put

down, but not entirely, and the peasantry

organized a Peasants’ Union with the cry

“all the land for those who labor on it.”

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The peasantry were helped in organis-

ing themselves by the existence of ancient village councils called “mirs.” These were panchayets, on a highly democratic basis, often meeting in the open and discussing the local affairs of the village. They owned sometimes some common land which used to be divided up by them. There were also more formal and official local bodies called

the ‘‘zemstvos” which came into existence

after the emancipation. The franchise for

these was based on property and they were thus usually controlled by the landlords.

They may be compared in their functions

and activities to the present District Boards in India.

The war hit the peasantry the hardest.

The army absorbed their best men and it

is said that seven millions of them died or

were maimed. Fields remained uncultivated and where man had fought for long years against the forest and had gradually driven it back, the forest advanced again triumphantly and undid the work of generations. Strange forces began to move the  great masses and the cry arose, ever more insistent, of ‘‘peace and land”’—to which the town people added ‘‘bread”.

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The peasants held aloof from the Bolshe-

viks during the early days of the revolu-

tion. But without the help of the peasan-

try Bolshevism was doomed to defeat. Ultimately Lenin won over the Peasants’ Congress. But even before this the peasants had taken the law into their own hands and had expropriated the landlords themselves and taken possession of the land.

The civil war that followed with its

bands of adventurers attacking the Soviet

government with foreign money and

 munitions was a time of sore trial for the peasaniry. Fearful of losing again their land,which they had acquired after so much toil and suffering, they rallied to the Soviet government, and it was largely with their help that the Soviet triumphed. But the war was followed by famine and disease and it was on this scene of horror and destruction that the work of reconstruction had to begin.

The earliest decrees of the Soviet

government dealt with the nationalisation of land. Land could not be bought,sold, rented, given as security, or expropriated by any means whatever.” *‘ The  right to enjoy the land is accorded, without 

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«distinction of sex, to all citizens of the

State who wish to work the land either

with their own families or in other forms

of association, and only as long as they are capable of working. Hiring of labor is

prohibited.” The peasant thus got the

land and. was freed from the debt on the

land and from yearly rents to landlords.

Some of the big estates were taken over

by the State and made into model farms.

Distribution of land amongst the peasantry was left to the village communes.

The old practice of communes holding

land made nationalisation easier than it

otherwise would have been. This how-

ever often meant that the farmer lived far

from the land and so the farmer had to

migrate to his fields during the working

season. The women-folk help in the fields

in summer. In winter they keep busy by

spinning, knitting and sewing.

The early decrees totally prevented. the

transference of the right to use land. But

in spite of this all manner of illegal rent-

ing grew up. In 1922 the law was changed

and renting for a fixed small period was

permitted. Hiring of labour continued to

be forbidden. Even this did not. bring .

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sufficient relief as large numbers of families had no horses or other animals to do the work. So a further change was made in 1926. The period for renting was increased and hiring labor on such rented land was permitted, subject to certain conditions. All rental contracts must be 

registered with the local authorities and the working members of the family of the renter must worl: on the land, though they may hire labour to assist them. Hired

labourers must be treated as regards food and lodging as members of the family.

There are a number of other conditions 

regulating the renting of land and the hiring of labour.

The peasant pays one tax to the State

—the agricultural tax. This is so arranged

that the richer peasant pays not only more proportionately but the rate is an increasing one. On the other hand a large’ number of the poor peasants are wholly exempt from taxation on the ground that their income is too little and ‘their standards of life

too low to permit of further deterioration

by taxation, They thus hold the land with-

out paying anything for it. Till last year

this exemption applied to twenty-five per

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cent of peasant farms. On the tenth an-

niversary of the. Revolution, -1927-the government announced that they proposed to -extend this exemption to a further ten percent. In addition a proposal was made to give’ state pensions to aged people among the poorer peasants.

Russia is very poor and there is nothing

it wants so much as money for education,

agricultural development and industrial

expansion. It is curious therefore that in

spite of this demand for money tax exemp

tions should be increased. The Commu-

nist Party Congress of 1926 stated that

they refused to regard the. peasant merely as an object of taxation. Excessive taxes and the "increasing of retail prices would inevitably stop the progress of the productive power of the village and diminish the commodities of agriculture.

The average tax per peasant household

in 1924-25 was 14-2 roubles ; in 1925-26

. it was 9-3 roubles, and in 1926-27. it was.

11-9 roubles. (£1=10 roubles). The tax

is based on the area of arable land, varied

by the number of members of the family.

Live stock is treated as parts of an acre

for purposes of taxation. The tax is a

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steeply graded one. Thus for incomes up

to 150 roubles it is 4:75 per cent ; to 200

roubles 5-25 per cent ; to 300 roubles 5-75 per cent ; to 400 roubles 8 per cent; to 600 roubles 16-5 per cent; and over 6oo roubles 14 per cent.

A considerable part of the agricultural

tax is spent on local needs. In 1925-26

the tax yielded 235 million roubles. Out of this roughly 100 roubles were spent locally.

The tax is thus meant to cover both local

and national budgets. It is interesting to

find however that many villages all over

the country raise voluntary taxes for their

own needs. This voluntary tax sometimes

is as high as 35 per cent of the agricultural

tax, and in one instance was reported to he 72 per cent of it.

Soon after the Revolution large 

numbers of communes sprang up. Groups of workers organised themselves into little communities to work on the land together

and live a common life. Many religious

groups did likewise. But in spite of its

great initial success the movement dwin-

dled, chiefly on account of friction on

matters of detail. It was replaced gradu-

ally by the “artel” which was an associa-

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tion of peasants who pooled their resources and cultivated a common plot of land.

Later came other forms of co-operative use of land known as “collectives”.

The great advantage of these collective

forms of cultivation is the use of machinery, tractors and the like, which are utterly out of the reach of the individual peasant.

The tractor is almost a god in Russia to-

day and it is the tractor that has led peo-

ple to large scale co-operation on the land.

Agricultural banks and credit societies

have been extensively organised and there are many facilities for obtaining credit.

There were in 1926 over four million two

hundred thousand members of these societies. Help is given by the State through these societies in the form of loans of money for capital, or loans of seeds, or by deferring payments on machinery. Co-operative socicties of ‘other kinds, consumers and agricultural, have also spread remarkably.

The Soviet government is making every

effort to induce families to migrate from

the over crowded areas to other parts of

the country. Facilities in land and rail

way fares and loans and temporary exemp-

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ton {rom taxation are offered to those who migra te,

“Cotta ze industries used to flourish i

Russia and several million men and w omen were engaged in them. The number de-crewed “greatly during and after the war but they are again increasing. They are being encouraged i in every way and such taxes as were a hindrance to them have been removed. This home industry is

specially useful in the winter months when there is little else to be done. Clothing boots, tinware, wooden goods and many other things are thus made by hand or by simple machinery.

I have referred elsewhere in the course

of these articles to the Peasants’ Houses

v Institutes and to the many other activi-

ties of the peasantry. They have their

newspapers and country fairs and academies and sanatoria ; their libraries and reading rooms and women’s clubs. The Society forthe Liquidation of Illiteracy and Mutual Aid Societies are to be found everywhere.

And so  are the youth organisations—the

Pioneers and the Komsomols.

Great changes have taken place in the

economy of the village in Russia and the

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church has lost its pre-eminent position.

But still it continues to be a centre of activities and the church holidays are celebrated

with feasting and festivity. Civil marriage

may be easy but many still crowd the church during the wedding season.

Gradually however the church is being

ousted from pride of place by the Narodni

Dam, the Peoples House or Panchayat

Ghar. This usually houses the library and

reading room and club and class rooms and " theatre. And inevitably there is the Lenin corner, draped in red. ©