The Economics of the Russian Village. Isaac A. Hourwich
the government, why, this will must be complied with against the government. Thus revolutionary peasantism came into being. After years of propaganda it broke out in 1873–1874 in a huge movement that was called “the pilgrimage amongst the folk.” Hundreds of boys and girls, chiefly college students, settled in villages as common laborers to make propaganda among the peasants for what they believed to be socialistic ideas. They hoped to be able, sooner or later, to foment a popular uprising that would result in the establishment of a new social order.
Certainly this juvenile movement must, under any circumstances, have inevitably proved a failure. Defeat was, however, accelerated by the merciless persecution of the Government. The events which followed are only too well known for it to be necessary for me to dwell on them. The final defeat of revolutionary peasantism after 1881, brought into the foreground a peaceable peasantist movement that excited little attention, but which will certainly be of great consequence for the coming development of Russia. Having suffered shipwreck in their revolutionary course, the peasantists came to the conclusion that scientific investigation of the economics of the village was the most essential preliminary for any rational political action. And scores of former revolutionists zealously took part in the statistical investigation started by the zemstvos (provincial assemblies).
It is true that the revolutionary peasantists cannot be credited with the initiative of this important work. The founder of the so-called “Moscow method” of statistical investigation, the late Vasili Ivanovitch Orloff, was a peaceable peasantist in 1875, when a young man of twenty-seven he took into his hands the Statistical Bureau of the Moscow zemstvo. Yet the many who helped him in his work, and who afterwards became somewhat prominent in spreading his system over new provinces, such men as Messrs. Greegoryeff, Werner, Shtcherbina, Annensky, etc., had previously spent several years in prison and in exile for “political offences.”
It is by no means exaggerated to say that in the hundreds of volumes of the censuses, ordered by the majority of the thirty-two zemstvos, Russia possesses a masterpiece of statistics which for its completeness, and for the mathematical exactness of its figures, has hardly been rivalled in any country. The following quotations will give some idea of the methods practiced by the Russian statisticians:
“We used to begin by making a minute extract from the Book of assessed taxes. Another highly interesting document found in the “bailiff’s board” (volostnoye pravlenie) was the Book of transactions and contracts. It had been kept for many years, and contained the terms of agreements made between peasants and landlords of the neighborhood for agricultural work, as well as the terms of those agreements made between peasants and contractors, where the work had been done outside the limits of the village. There were also to be found there rental agreements, made both by peasants and those outside the ranks of the peasants; loan agreements made by individuals, as well as by communities, with joint suretyship of all their members, etc. The third document was the Book for registering passports, from which we could learn approximately the number of peasants yearly leaving their villages for a time. … After these quotations had been made in the bailiff’s board, we made a tour through the villages under the jurisdiction of the board, and it was here that the local inquiries began, and the most valuable material was collected. In every community of every village[1] we called a regular meeting of the community’s members, and, in meeting assembled we took a census. We passed with every householder through a series of questions, tending to elucidate the economic capacity of his family, and capable of being put in figures. The method itself of collecting these data in full meeting insured the greatest possible correctness of the figures obtained; one householder often aided the other in remembering some fact, or corrected his misstatements. It frequently happened that some sheep or calf, which was intended for sale or was already sold, called forth a discussion as to whether it should not also be included in the list. The questions were asked with a view to ascertain from every household the following points: the area of land allotted at the emancipation, purchased as private property, or farmed; the way in which the soil was tilled, whether it was cultivated by the householder himself, or by some of his neighbors, whom, in such cases, he had usually hired, because he himself owned no horse, or finally, whether he had entered the ranks of the “husbandless” (i.e., destitute of husbandry),[2] who lease their lots or desert them altogether. We also ascertained what were the labor forces of the family, male and female; the entire number of heads of which it consisted; the business, apart from agriculture, of every adult member of the family, and whether the member sought work at a distance from home; the quantity of cattle; the size of the buildings; the shops belonging to every family. In a word, through the census a picture is drawn of the economic condition of all the households of the community. The number of those who can read, or who are learning to read, is also given in the census. Certainly the material collected appears to be of such a character as to furnish fundamental facts for the formation of a judgment as to the economic condition of the population.”[3]
The technical side of statistics, says Mr. Shtcherbina, the methods applied in the local investigations, are elaborated with the minutest detail. … The questions are several times crossed by each other, so as to mutually complete and verify the statements.[4]
The area covered by the investigations for the year 1890, is represented by the following figures:[5]
| Provinces (Gubernias) | 25 |
| Districts | 148 |
| Communes | 50,429 |
| Peasant households | 3,309,020 |
| Total males and females | 19,693,191 |
This is about one-fifth of the total population of European Russia.
As the unit for all information is identical with the economic cell—the peasant household—these investigations present us with the true scientific anatomy of Russian economic life. Nevertheless there may be cases in which plain truth is not exceedingly welcome. This holds true even of the most advanced reform parties. Why then should the Russian nobility be among the exceptions, if there are any? If the rent is exorbitant and the earnings of the farmer are scanty, it does not require a genius to draw the conclusion that there must be some connection of cause and sequence between the two facts. Still, this is precisely what the landlords would like to keep hidden from public notice. Hence strong opposition by the party of the nobility to the statistical investigations. The statisticians were generally charged with representing only such facts as favored their leanings toward land nationalization and expropriation of the landlords. The first outbreak of this opposition took place in 1882 in Ryazañ against Mr. Greegoryeff, Superintendent of the Ryazañ Bureau of Statistics, and his assistants. The assembly passed a resolution that the two volumes of the census which dealt with the districts of Dankoff and Ranenburg should be suppressed. These volumes were confined exclusively to raw material, and contained only tables and statements, without any generalizations. The excitement was so great that some of the members moved to buy out all copies which had already been put in circulation, though it should cost 100 roubles ($50) a copy, and to solemnly burn them as a public example. It is true that this extreme motion was not carried, but Mr. Greegoryeff was sent for four years into administrative exile at Kineshma, a small town of the province of Kostroma, and put under police surveillance as a political suspect. Thus Russian statistics have already had their martyr. Mr. Greegoryeff’s book, The Emigration of the Peasants from the Province of Ryazañ, founded on the same proscribed data, was subsequently honored with a prize by the University of Moscow.
Similar occurrences took place in Kazañ and Kursk. In the latter province the assembly proscribed the general review of the province, although the review consisted merely of the totals of the respective items for the several districts, and the volumes containing these items were in due time published by the assembly.
However, it must be admitted that Mr. Werner’s fate was not a specially hard one, since he was not even