Russian essays and stories

THE Zemstvo report of a large district in the centre of Russia for the year 1907, the district of Morshansk, government of Tambov, is in the highest degree illuminating as to the difficulties and the problems with which Russian administrators and reformers are beset at the present moment. Before proceeding to an analysis of the report it will perhaps be as well to remind the reader of what the Zemstvo consists. The Zemstvo is a County Council consisting of about thirty-two members, of which twelve represent the nobility (practically the large landowner class), twelve the peasants, and six the city or cities of the district, one the clergy, and one the official class. To represent the nobility a candidate must possess a certain quantity of land (in the district I am speaking of, about 500 acres). Each member is elected by his class. This County Council has in its hands the management of nearly all the primary schools, the public health department, the support and management of the roads and means of communication, and various small but important matters connected with farming and agriculture, besides the organisation of the county post. To pay for all this the Zemstvo has the right to levy taxes on the land. The Council elects a Standing Board of four members including the chairman, which carries on the business from one yearly meeting of the Council to the next, and is elected for three years. The Council also sends representatives to another Zemstvo Council representing the whole province, which is managed on similar lines.

The Board in the report in question starts by saying that the most salient fact in the present state of the Zemstvo in the district of Morshansk for the past year is a want of funds, owing to the fact that the taxes due both from peasants and landowners by which the Zemstvo is supported are no longer forthcoming. The taxes are not forthcoming because neither the peasants nor the landowners are willing to pay them, this unwillingness being in some cases a matter of principle and in others the result of the peculiar psychology of the Russian landed class at the present time. The peasantry is neither sufficiently developed nor does it possess the requisite knowledge to form conceptions of principle with regard to the payment or the non-payment of taxes consciously. Conceptions of this kind, however, obviously exist, and they have reached the mass of the peasantry in the form of ready-made watchwords or party cries. These watchwords have the characteristic of releasing the peasantry from some kind of moral tie or obligation; it is not therefore surprising that being sown broadcast among the masses at a time of popular excitement they are eagerly absorbed. In the Daily Press stress was laid on the significance of not paying the Zemstvo taxes. The idea was spread among the peasants that the Zemstvo of the present day is an aristocratic institution, which draws on the resources of the peasant without giving him anything in return. Such was the elementary philosophy which was absorbed by the peasants. And now, although the cry against paying the Zemstvo taxes is no longer heard, doubt and confusion have been instilled into the peasant as to what is truth, and in what the Zemstvo taxes in reality consist, as to whether they are simply a “squeeze” or a matter of public necessity and local interest. Such a question can only be settled by an inspection of figures and facts, but before going into these it is necessary to say a few words with regard to the non-payment of taxes by the landowners. The landowners were not so much actuated in this case by a principle as by a feeling of alarm resulting from the horrors of the Agrarian agitation. At one moment it seemed as if the end of private property had come, and that the only course left was to liquidate one’s affairs and to flee from one’s burning house, and if such was the case the landowner said to himself, “What is the use of paying taxes when my house is on fire, and I am lucky if I get off with my life?” In the places where, as in this district, there were no such violent incidents, a cooler argument obtained, namely, “If the peasants were not paying, why should we pay?” Some landowners, an infinite minority it is true, went so far in the organs of a reactionary character as to invert and apply the simple party-cry of the peasants, speaking thus: “The Zemstvo is simply a peasants’ institution drawing on the resources of the large landowners, and is incompatible with State interests; let it therefore be abolished.” Thus the Zemstvo in its effort to satisfy the universally recognised needs of the population found itself between Scylla and Charybdis. Let us now return to the question, which is more important, of the boycotting of the Zemstvo by the peasants. If the Zemstvo is an aristocratic institution which would therefore deserve to be boycotted by the people, it should above all and before all consider its own class interests and satisfy them at the cost of the Zemstvo funds, otherwise the accusation is meaningless. A glance at the balance-sheet subjoined will satisfy the reader as to whether this is the case or not.

Total estimated expenses for 1907–8: 243,504 roubles 60 kopecks (£24,350, 5s.) divided as follows:—

From the above figures it will be seen that one-fourth of the whole expenses is devoted to the support of hospitals, doctors, accoucheurs, nurses; and these hospitals are exclusively devoted to the peasants, who are relieved free of charge. Another fourth of the whole amount is devoted to the support of teachers and schools, in which the peasants’ children, and peasants’ children alone, are educated.

In fact, 75 per cent. of the total expenses are devoted by the Zemstvo to the needs of the peasants, and 25 per cent. to the needs of the population at large, but not exclusively to any special class. The charge, therefore, of the Zemstvo being in this district an aristocratic institution falls to the ground. It might be said that although the Zemstvo devotes 75 per cent. of its expenses to the needs of the peasantry it does not give as much as it receives from them. But the Zemstvo for this district should receive out of the Zemstvo taxes paid by the peasants for 1907 86,000 roubles (the rest being paid by the landowners), and it returns them 15 per cent. of the expenses, that is to say, 182,000 roubles. In other words, the peasant receives for every rouble he pays 2 roubles 12 kopecks worth of medical aid, education, etc. There is another argument which has likewise become a catchword and is used as a party-cry against the Zemstvo, namely, that the peasants are overburdened by Zemstvo taxation and are not in a state to be able to pay additional Zemstvo taxes. Besides the Zemstvo taxes, the following is a complete list of the total taxes paid by the peasants:—

The Zemstvo taxes form, therefore, one-sixth of the total taxation, but the Zemstvo Board does not consider the peasants to be overtaxed for the following reason: During 1906 the total amount spent by the peasants in the district on alcohol was 1,800,000 roubles (£180,000). The population of the district amounts to 300,000; this means 6 roubles a head, or over 36 roubles a farm (there being 40,000 farms in the district), and as the total taxation amounts in round figures to 500,000 roubles (£50,000) the amount of taxes paid by each farm is 12 roubles 50 kopecks.

If a farm can pay a yearly voluntary tax in alcohol of 36 roubles it is absurd to speak of its being overtaxed by a yearly payment of 12 roubles 50 kopecks, and still more absurd to talk of the burden of the Zemstvo tax, which amounts to 2 roubles 15 kopecks per farm.

This is the gist of the Zemstvo report of this district for 1907. At first sight two conclusions might be drawn from it: (1) that the political agitators and the Liberal Press in general have been guilty of criminal folly in urging the peasants to boycott the Zemstvo; (2) that it is useless to try and improve the condition of peasants who refuse money for the support of the means of bettering their condition, and spend it on drink. Such conclusions would be too sweeping. Political agitators have, indeed, done endless mischief in advocating such futile and wicked measures as, for instance, the boycotting of the Zemstvos, and this testifies to their total lack of political experience; but the very existence of such a propaganda, and the very fact that the watchwords quoted above can be accepted presupposes a frame of mind which can only result from the persistence of bad Government and the constant putting off of reform. With regard to the peasants and their drink, the autocratic system is again to a certain degree at the root of the matter, since so far from discouraging drink among the peasants, it lives upon it, the money spent on drink by the peasant forming a substantial part of the State revenue.⁠[6] And in cases where the peasants have demanded that the Government spirit store may be closed in their village the local Government Magistrate has refused them the permission to do so. Moreover, it is sufficiently well known that the autocratic system of Government—that is to say the old régime—never of its own accord took a single serious step to raise the condition of the peasants by education, civilisation, and culture. On the contrary, it leant with all its might against the closed door.