(1)
Stephen Graham, Alexander II (1935)
To give the land (to the serfs) meant to ruin the
nobility, and to give freedom without land meant to ruin the peasantry.
The state treasury impoverished by the vast expenses of war, could
not afford to indemnify either party. There lay the problem. Could
the serfs made to pay for their freedom? Could the serf-owners be
granted loans on the security of their estates? Would not twenty-two
million slaves suddenly set free combine to take matters into their
own hands.
The position
of most large landowners was this. They lived in St. Petersburg or
some other great city. They did not farm their estates. They had stewards
who administered their property and collected their revenue. They
had numbers of serfs paying a handsome annual tribute for their partial
freedom, a tribute which the landowners' agents strove incessantly
to increase. It was their slaves rather than their land which brought
them income.
(2)
Victor Serge, From Serfdom to Proletarian
Revolution (1930)
From 1840 onwards, the need for serious reform does
begin to be apparent: agricultural production is poor, grain exports
low, the growth of manufacturing industry slowed down through the
shortage of labour; capitalist development is being impeded through
aristocracy and serfdom.
It is a
perilous situation, which is given a fairly astute solution in the
act of "liberation" of 19th February 1861, abolishing serfdom.
With a population of sixty-seven million, Russia had twenty-three
million serfs belonging to 103,000 landlords. The arable land which
the freed peasantry had to rent or buy was valued at about double
its real value (342 million roubles instead of 180 million); yesterday's
serfs discovered that, in becoming free, they were now hopelessly
in debt.
(3)
In the summer of 1876 Praskovia
Ivanovskaia and
her friend Galina Cheriavskaia went to work as farm labourers in the
Ukraine. They were revolutionaries and were hoping to convert the
peasants to socialism.
On our first day, we joined the other women workers
in some pretty filthy work: shearing sheep. We performed this monotonous
task in a large covered shed, saturated with the smell of sheep. Some
of us sheared, while others picked burrs and all sorts of trash that
had gotten caught in the wool.
We were
soon transferred from the foul shed to a distant work site in the
broad steppe, the realm of green fields. We were assigned to hay mowing.
At four
in the morning, as the sun's rays were just beginning to spill over
the steppe, the overseer would wake us, kicking the legs of those
who wouldn't get up immediately. At the camp, the steward assigned
us to the various sectors. In the morning, we froze from the bitterly
cold dew, which drenched our clothing up to the waist. Staggering
along, still half asleep, we worked as automatically as robots, gradually
warming up a bit.
At ten,
we returned to camp for breakfast, which lasted around half an hour.
Despite the camp hubbub, some people preferred to nap instead of eating.
Our food was of rather poor quality - very plain and unappetizing.
In the morning, they cooked us a watery gruel made from wheat and
water with a dose of salt, or buckwheat dumplings as big as cobblestones
- one or two of these would satisfy the hunger of even the greatest
glutton. The meal was poured into a wooden trough, from which you'd
pull the dumplings with long, pointed splinters. We got the same modest
fare for lunch and dinner.
After our
brief breakfast, we returned to work. As the day wore on, the heat
became so intense that you wanted to take shelter in any available
patch of shade. The sun was so strong that the backs of most of the
newly arrived vagabonds were practically covered with swollen blisters;
later, as their skin toughened up, the burns went away. We women were
often so exhausted from the heat that we lost much of our modesty:
when we reaped and bound the hay, we wore only our shirts, since that
made it a lot easier to work.
During
the busy season, there were no set limits to the work day: if the
steward wished, it could last for sixteen hours or more, with only
an hour off for lunch. Actually, the work itself was lively and gay,
although Galina and I found it difficult and alien.
In the
evening, after the sun had set, we returned to camp. The fire would
be going and dinner waiting. Some people filled their stomachs with
the plain, unsatisfying food and fell asleep on the spot, scattered
around camp. Everyone slept under the open sky, harassed by mosquitoes
and subject to the bites of other enemies as well: the black spiders,
whose venom could make your whole body swell up.
At first,
people found it rather strange to hear ordinary girls - manual labourers
like themselves - speak of many things they'd never heard or even
thought about. They became most interested when the conversation touched
upon the land: this immensely important topic was dear to every heart.
Everyone was united on this issue; they all felt the need for land
most acutely, and this provided us a way to reach even the simplest
peasant.
However,
we didn't actually conduct socialist propaganda; it was clear that
we were still an alien, incomprehensible element in a world we scarcely
knew.
Of course,
our difficulties were compounded by the repressive political system
of Russia and the peasants' own fear. They reacted to all radical
talk with caution, distrust, and sometimes the most natural incomprehension.
Frequently our evening talks ended with the peasants saying: "That's
our fate - so it's been written", or, "We're born - we'll
die."
In fact,
we were rarely able to talk at all: after the day's work, our limbs
shrieked with weariness, our exhausted bodies demanded rest and peace.
(4)
Leon Trotsky wrote about life on a Russian
farm in his book, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography.
My father
and mother lived out their hard-working lives with some friction,
but very happily on the whole. Of the eight children born of this
marriage, four survived. I was the fifth in order of birth. Four died
in infancy, of diphtheria and of scarlet fever, deaths almost as unnoticed
as was the life of those who survived. The land, the cattle, the poultry,
the mill, took all my parents' time; there was none left for us.
We lived
in a little mud house. The straw roof harboured countless sparrows'
nests under the eaves. The walls on the outside were seamed with deep
cracks which were a breeding place for adders. The low ceilings leaked
during a heavy rain, especially in the hall, and pots and basins would
be placed on the dirt floor to catch the water. The rooms were small,
the windows dim; the floors in the two rooms and the nursery were
of clay and bred fleas.
On the
hill above the pond stood the mill - a wooden shed which sheltered
a ten-horse-power steam-engine and two millstones. Here, during the
first years of my childhood, my mother spent the greater part of her
working hours. The mill worked not only for our own estate but for
the whole neighbourhood as well. The peasants brought their grain
in from ten and fifteen miles around and paid a tenth measure for
the grinding.
(5)
In the summer of 1917 Ernest Poole visited
the rural areas of Russia. This included an interview with a farmer
who was a member of a village cooperative.
Our cooperative
store has still quite a stock of goods, and the steadier peasants
all belong. We have eighteen hundred members now. Each paid five roubles
to buy a share. There were six thousand purchasers last year; and
because we charge higher prices to outsiders than to members, so many
more peasants wish to join that we are almost ready to announce a
second issue of stock.
Of course,
our progress has been blocked by the war and the revolution. Goods
have gone up to ruinous rates. Already we are nearly out of horseshoes,
axes, harrows, ploughs. Last spring we had not ploughs enough to do
the needed ploughing, and that is why our crop is short. There is
not enough rye in the district to take us through the winter, let
alone to feed the towns. And so the town people will starve for awhile
- and sooner or later, I suppose, they will finish with their wrangling,
start their mills and factories, and turn out the ploughs and tools
we need.
(6)
Russian peasant interviewed by Ernest Poole
for his book, The Village: Russian Impressions (1918)
Just take
a trip to Petrograd. Go to any railroad siding there and you will
see perfect hills of scrap iron. Why can't they melt it up again and
out it to use? Soon we shall have no axles left, no tyres for our
wagon wheels, no chains for the logs, no ploughs for the fields, no
horseshoes for our horses! But still they do nothing! The blind fools!
The trouble with those people is that they think all the best things
are made in the cities. It is not so. Here we grow the flax and grain;
here we raise the meat they eat, and the wool to keep them warm; we
cut trees to build their houses and firewood to heat their stoves.
Thy could not even cook without us! Other country districts turn out
the coal and the iron ore. All the real things in Russia are done
in the villages. What kind of crops do they raise in the towns? Only
Grand Dukes, Bolsheviks and drunkards!
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