The History of Liberalism in Russia

Chapter 10

124 at the time of the emancipation, land was not allocated to individual peasants, but rather to village communes. This seemed advisable not least because of the practicalities, thus making the process of land allocation much simpler. The land given to the communes could either be subdivided once and for all among the farmsteads belonging to the commune, or particular plots (arable land) could be given to certain farmsteads for a limited time. At the end of this time, the land had to be redistributed among the farmsteads, taking into account the changes that had occurred in the composition of the farms in the commune in the meantime . It is thus possible to identify two types of peasant land ownership—land could belong either to a commune as a whole (this could correspond to a single village, a part of a village, or even a group of smaller villages—called obshchinnoe vladenie) or, on the other hand, to an individual farmstead (podvornoe vladenie). This latter form of property was certainly just a variation on the former. First, the deeds issued when the land was allocated were not given to the individual farmsteads , but to the commune. Furthermore, the deeds only showed how much land a farmstead was to receive, but not where this land was located or the boundaries of the plots. Sometimes a statement was even added to the effect that the commune could exchange one plot for another. It was not allowed then, however, to alter the area of the plot, and this constitutes the real difference between communal ownership and farmstead ownership.1 Communes had the right to move chapter 10 Peasant Law The farmstead—other important aspects of peasant law peasant law • 125 over to farmstead ownership, if a village assembly voted for it by a two-thirds majority . In principle, it was also not impossible to change from farmstead to communal ownership. Neither communal nor farmstead ownership constituted individual private property. All the land allocated to the peasants (nadel’naia zemlia) was a resource that formed the material basis for the state to fulfill its obligation to ensure a livelihood for the peasantry. No one was granted any individual rights, any property rights, in relation either to this land or to a single part of it. Parts of the overall land bank were allocated either to the communes or to farmsteads. Each peasant had to belong to a commune and a farmstead, which meant that every peasant had to be provided with land on account of this membership. This entitlement to be allocated land was not at all the same as a right, as understood in civil law. It was an entitlement to a state benefit, similar in nature to ration cards, an allocation of coal, or the entitlement of the homeless to be housed. The profound, fundamental difference between this entitlement and a right can be seen clearly from some of its features. First, a peasant only enjoyed this entitlement while he remained a member of the farmstead. If he definitively cut his ties to the farmstead, the entitlement lapsed without any compensation. This was the logical outcome of the fact that any individual farmstead member’s share of land was not defined, indeed, fundamentally could not be determined.2 Individuals were not granted a specific right over a particular part of the property. For example, it was not possible for a member of a fifteen-person household who wanted to leave the farmstead to have any claim on the equivalent of a fifteenth of the value of the farmstead and its land. On the other hand, a member of the farmstead did not lose his “right to land,” even if he left the village for a longer period without definitively cutting his ties with the village, such as in the case of someone going to earn a living in a town, for example, as a worker or artisan. In this case, he was regarded as being on leave (v otluchke), and his entitlement was suspended. If he returned, he could renew his claim and had to be taken back by the farmstead to share again in its routine work and livelihood with the other members. It was not possible entirely to relinquish this entitlement, or “right to land”; in practice, it was only possible not to exercise it. If a peasant, earning his living as an artisan in the town, declared that he was permanently relinquishing his “right to land,” this would not...