CHAPTER I. GENERAL SKETCH OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANDHOLDING IN

RUSSIA 19

The Russian village community of historical times--Survivals of communal co-operation--The communistic peasant household--Origins of private property in land--Patrimony and fee--Slavery resulting from the obligation of loan--Tenure in fee an institute of public law--Limitation of the peasant’s right of migration--The fee becomes hereditary--Statute of Peter the Great on inheritance in the estates held by the nobility; abolition of the distinction between patrimony and fee--The poll tax--Slaves and serfs put upon a common footing--Emancipation of the nobility from their duty toward the state--The serfs agitated by a feeling in favor of emancipation--“Land and Liberty”--The question discussed in the Legislative Assembly convoked by Catherine II.--Insurrection under the head of Emilian Pougatchoff--Further developments of the abolitionist problem--Peasant riots about the time of the Crimean War--Economic necessity of abolition of serfdom--Evolution of private property achieved by the emancipation--Expropriation of the peasantry--Legends of land nationalization popular with the peasantry--The Statute of 1861 in its characteristic features--Russian taxation--Limitation of the personal liberty of the taxpayer--The village community upheld by over-taxation of the land--Counteracting influence of the rise of rent.