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Obshchina ( rus, община, p=ɐpˈɕːinə, literally "
commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...
") or mir (russian: мир, literally "society", among other meanings), or selskoye obshchestvo (russian: сельское общество, literally "rural community", official term in the 19th and 20th century; sil's'ke tovarystvo, uk, сільське товариство, literally "rural community"), were peasant
village communities The study of village communities has become one of the fundamental methods of discussing the ancient history of institutions. Wales Frederic Seebohm has called our attention to the interesting surveys of Welsh tracts of country made in the 14 ...
as opposed to individual farmsteads, or
khutor A khutor ( rus, хутор, p=ˈxutər) or khutir ( uk, хутiр, pl. , ''khutory'') is a type of rural locality in some countries of Eastern Europe; in the past the term mostly referred to a single-homestead settlement.
s, in
Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
. The term derives from the word ''obshchiy'' (russian: общий, literally "common"). The mir was a community consisting of former
serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...
, or
state peasants State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
and their descendants, settled as a rule in a single village, although sometimes a village included more than one mir and, conversely, several villages were sometimes combined in a single mir. The title of the land was vested in the mir and not in the individual peasant. Members of the mir had the right to the allotment, on some uniform basis, of a holding that each member cultivated separately. A holding could not be sold or bequeathed without the consent of the mir. As a consequence of its collective tenure, the mir had the power to repartition the land from time to time among its constituent households. The mir dealt primarily with the household and not with the individual. The peasant had a right to a holding but not to a particular holding, and he could not dispose of it freely. The vast majority of Russian peasants held their land in communal ownership within a mir community which acted as a village government and a cooperative. Arable land was divided in sections based on soil quality and distance from the village. Each household had the right to claim one or more strips from each section depending on the number of adults in the household. The purpose of this allocation was not so much social (to each according to his needs) as it was practical (that each person pay his taxes). Strips were periodically re-allocated on the basis of a census to ensure equitable share of the land. This was enforced by the state which had an interest in the ability of households to pay their taxes.


History

The concept of Obshchina was an important part in Old Russia and had its roots in Slavic communities. A detailed statistical description of the Russian village commune was provided by
Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov Alexander Ivanovich Chuprov (Александр Иванович Чупров; 1841–1908) was a professor of political economy and statistics at Moscow University whose lectures provided the standard introduction to economics for late 19th-centu ...
. Communal land ownership of the mir predated
serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...
, surviving emancipation and the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
. Until the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the mir could either contain
serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...
or free peasants. In the first case, lands reserved for serf use were assigned to the mir for allocation by the proprietor. Even after the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from obshchina, governed at the village level (''mir'') by the full assembly of the community (''skhod''). Among its duties were control and redistribution of the common land and forest (if such existed), levying recruits for military service and imposing punishments for minor crimes. Obshchina was also held responsible for taxes underpaid by members. This type of shared responsibility was known as ''krugovaya poruka'' (mutual responsibility), although the exact meaning of this expression has changed over time and now in Russian it has a negative meaning of mutual cover-up. In 1905, repartitional tenure did not exist in the Baltic provinces, but it was used by a quarter of western and southwestern (i.e. Ukrainian) peasants, two thirds of steppe peasants and 96.9% elsewhere. The institution was effectively destroyed by the Stolypin agrarian reforms (1906–1914), the implementation of which is considered to be one of the reasons which would lead to the Russian Revolution and subsequent
collectivization in the Soviet Union The Soviet Union introduced the collectivization (russian: Коллективизация) of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascension of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. T ...
.


Structure

The organization of the peasant
mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools ...
is the primary cause for the type of social structure found in the obshchina. The relationship between the individual peasant, the family and the community leads to a specific social structure categorized by the creation of familial alliances to apportion risks between members of the community. In the obshchina, alliances were formed primarily through marriage and common descent of kin. Usually, the eldest members of the household made up the mir to govern the redistribution of land. The families came together to form a community that depended on making taxes more equitable and the concept of mutual help. Jovan E. Howe writes: "The economic relations so established are essentially distributive: through various categories of exchanges of both products and labor, temporary imbalances such as those occasioned by insufficient labor power of a newly-established family unit or a catastrophic loss, which places one unit at an unfair reproductive disadvantage in relation to its allies, are evened out". In addition, the alliance system had residual communal rights, sharing exchanges during shortages as well as certain distributive exchanges. Furthermore, the structure defined by these alliances and risk-sharing measures were regulated by scheduling and the ritualization of time. Howe writes that "the traditional calendar of the Russian peasants was a guide for day-to-day living. The names attached to calendar dates, the calendrical periods into which they were grouped, the day on the week on which each fell, and the sayings connected with them encoded information about when to undertake tasks, but also about when not to work, when it was necessary to perform symbolic actions, take part in rituals and compulsory celebrations".
Peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasants ...
(i.e. three-quarters of the population of Russia) formed a class apart, largely excepted from the incidence of the ordinary law and governed in accordance with their local customs. The mir itself, with its customs, is of immemorial antiquity, but it was not until the 1861 emancipation of the serfs that the village community was withdrawn from the patrimonial jurisdiction of the landowning nobility and endowed with self-government. The assembly of the mir consists of all the peasant householders of the village. These elect a Village Elder (''
starosta The starosta or starost (Cyrillic: ''старост/а'', Latin: ''capitaneus'', german: link=no, Starost, Hauptmann) is a term of Slavic origin denoting a community elder whose role was to administer the assets of a clan or family estates. Th ...
'') and a collector of taxes who was responsible, at least until the ''ukaz'' of October 1906 which abolished communal responsibility for the payment of taxes, for the repartition among individuals of the taxes imposed on the commune. A number of mirs are united into a ''
volost Volost ( rus, во́лость, p=ˈvoləsʲtʲ; ) was a traditional administrative subdivision in Eastern Europe. In earlier East Slavic history, ''volost'' was a name for the territory ruled by the knyaz, a principality; either as an absolute ...
'' which has an assembly consisting of elected delegates from the mirs. The mir was protected from insolvency by the rule that the families cannot be deprived of their houses or implements necessary for agriculture; nor can the mir be deprived of its land.


View on obshchinas

The mir or obshchina became a topic in political philosophy with the publication of
August von Haxthausen August Franz Ludwig Maria, Baron von Haxthausen-Abbenburg (February 3, 1792, in Bökendorf, Prince-Bishopric of Paderborn – December 31, 1866, in Hanover) was a German agricultural scientist, economist, lawyer, writer, and collector of folk song ...
's book in 1847. It was in the mid-19th century that
Slavophiles Slavophilia (russian: Славянофильство) was an intellectual movement originating from the 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed on the basis of values and institutions derived from Russia's early history. Slavoph ...
discovered the mir. Romantic nationalists and the Slavophiles hailed the mir as a purely Russian collective, both ancient and venerable; free from what they considered the stain of the
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
mindset found in western Europe. Not surprisingly, it was but a short step from this to the mir being used as a basis for Slavophilic idealist theories concerning communism, communalism, communal lands, history, progress and the nature of mankind itself. By the second half of the 19th century, the Slavophiles were challenged by the opposing Western faction.
Boris Chicherin Boris Nikolayevich Chicherin (russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Чиче́рин) ( 1828 – 1904) was a Russian jurist and political philosopher, who worked out a theory that Russia needed a strong, authoritative government to perseve ...
, a leading spokesman for the Western school, argued that the mir was neither ancient nor particular to Russia. The mir, the Western school argued, had arisen in the late 17th to early 18th century and was not based on some sort of social contract or communal instinct. Rather, it was a monarchical creation, created and enforced for the purpose of tax collection. Whatever the merits of either case, both schools agreed that the landlord and the state both played a vital role in the development (if not the origin of) the mir:
Where (arable) land is scarce, the communal form of tenure tends to prevail, but where ever it (arable land) is abundant it is replaced by household or even family tenure.
The 19th-century
Russian philosophers Russian philosophy includes a variety of philosophical movements. Authors who developed them are listed below sorted by movement. While most authors listed below are primarily philosophers, also included here are some Russian fiction writers, s ...
attached signal importance to obshchina as a unique feature distinguishing Russia from other countries.
Alexander Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен, translit=Alexándr Ivánovich Gértsen; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agra ...
, for example, hailed this pre-
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
institution as a germ of the future
socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
society. His Slavophile opponent
Aleksey Khomyakov Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov (russian: Алексе́й Степа́нович Хомяко́в; May 13 ( O.S. May 1) 1804, Moscow – October 5 (O.S. September 23), 1860, Moscow) was a Russian theologian, philosopher, poet and amateur artist. H ...
regarded obshchina as symbolic of the spiritual unity and internal co-operation of Russian society and worked out a sophisticated "Philosophy of Obshchina" which he called
sobornost Sobornost ( rus, собо́рность, p=sɐˈbornəstʲ "spiritual community of many jointly-living people") is a Russian term whose usage is primarily attributed to the 19th-century Slavophile Russian writers Ivan Kireyevsky (1806-1856) ...
. The European socialist movement looked to this arrangement as evidence that Russian peasants had a history of socialization of property and lacked bourgeois impulses toward ownership:
Russia is the sole European country where the "agricultural commune" has kept going on a nationwide scale up to the present day. It is not the prey of a foreign conqueror, as the
East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...
, and neither does it lead a life cut off from the modern world. On the one hand, the common ownership of land allows it to transform individualist farming in parcels directly and gradually into
collective farming Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
, and the Russian peasants are already practising it in the undivided grasslands; the physical lie of the land invites mechanical cultivation on a large scale; the peasant’s familiarity with the contract of artel facilitates the transition from parcel labour to cooperative labour; and, finally, Russian society, which has so long lived at his expense, owes him the necessary advances for such a transition. On the other hand, the contemporaneity of western production, which dominates the world market, allows Russia to incorporate in the commune all the positive acquisitions devised by the capitalist system without passing through its
Caudine Forks The Battle of Caudine Forks, 321 BC, was a decisive event of the Second Samnite War. Its designation as a battle is a mere historical formality: there was no fighting and there were no casualties. The Romans were trapped in an enclosed valley by ...
.e. undergo humiliation in defeatMarx, Karl (1881). ''First Draft of Letter to
Vera Zasulich Vera Ivanovna Zasulich (russian: link=no, Ве́ра Ива́новна Засу́лич; – 8 May 1919) was a Russian socialist activist, Menshevik writer and revolutionary. Radical beginnings Zasulich was born in Mikhaylovka, in the Smol ...
''.


See also

*
Commons The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons ...
*
Kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...
*
Opština Opština, općina, občina, obshtina or obshchina, Cyrillic: општина, опћина or община, is a local government unit, most commonly translated as municipality in English English usually refers to: * English language * En ...
*
Repartition Repartition (russian: передел, translit=peredel) was a practice in the Russian Empire of the periodic redistribution of the peasant's arable land by the village community. The traditional household did not permanently hold a particular a ...
(periodic strip redistribution)


Notes


References

*
Richard Pipes Richard Edgar Pipes ( yi, ריכארד פּיִפּעץ ''Rikhard Pipets'', the surname literally means 'beak'; pl, Ryszard Pipes; July 11, 1923 – May 17, 2018) was an American academic who specialized in Russian and Soviet history. He publish ...
's ''Russia Under the Old Regime'' *


External links


Mir - infoplease
* {{Slavic terms for country subdivisions Agricultural labor Economic history of Russia Agricultural economics Local government in the Russian Empire Society of the Russian Empire Russian words and phrases