Поиск по творчеству и критике
Cлово "KNIFE"
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Входимость: 1. Размер: 61кб.
Часть текста: of capital importance. Indeed, the whole Russian Question, for the present at least, may be said to be included in that of serfdom. Russia cannot make a step in advance until she has abolished slavery. The serfdom of the Russian peasant is the servitude of the Russian empire. The political and social existence of Western Europe formerly was concentrated in châteaux and in cities. It was essentially an aristocratic, or municipal existence. The peasant remained outside of the movement. The revolution took little thought of him. The sale of national property had no effect upon his condition, except to create a limited provincial bourgeoisie. The serf knew well enough that the land did not belong to him: he only looked for a personal and negative emancipation: an emancipation of the labourer. In Russia the reverse is the case. The original organization of that agricultural and communistic people was essentially democratic. There were no châteaux, very few towns, and those few nothing but large villages. No distinction existed between the peasant and the citizen. The rural commune, as it still exists, is the exact image of the great communes of Novgorod, Pskow, Kiev. Moscovite centralization, indeed, destroyed the autonomy of the towns: but the humble word commune preserved its self-government, its trial by jury, its justices of the peace, till after the reign of Ivan the Terrible: that is to say, till the XVIIth century. The soil was not as yet the subject of individual property: each rural commune held its allotment of land. Each of its members had the right to cultivate a portion...