Peasant Life in Soviet Russia ALS 1927 230711 222938

LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.
1 9'I
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius A zLqLLa
Peasant Life
in Soviet Russia
Anna Louise Strong
ALEX PHILLIPS
405 Galbreath Ave.
New Castle, Fa. 16101
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 11 9 /C
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius JL -fe/a-z'U'
Peasant Life
in Soviet Russia
Anna Louise Strong
ALEX PHILLIPS
405 Galbreath Ave.
New Castle, Pa. 16101
HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, KANSAS
Copyright,
Haldeman-Julius Company
PBINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA

CONTENTS.
Page
The Land and Its People....................................... 5
The Coming of the Revolution.......... .................. 15
The Soviet Village................................................... 19
The Peasants Themselves Speak Out —.37
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE
In speaking of the Soviet Union one turns
naturally to superlatives. The largest Repub
lic in the world; the largest stretch of terri
tory under one flag in the world; the largest
sown area; the largest forests; the largest
iron deposits. We are dealing with a country
which has in its size the power to make world
history—if mere size counts.
In the past, however, its mere size has not
counted; the stream of world progress has
gone on outside its boundaries, and its contri
butions have been negligible. Across its
mighty plains have indeed swept the forces
which created Greece and Rome and overthrew
them, and built again on their ruins modern
Europe—race after race from the heart of
Asia or the north of China driving along that
easy highway to fertilize and be absorbed in
the culture of Europe. But Russia herself
played in this the part merely of highway, a
negative, not a positive, contribution to mod
ern civilization. It was the tribes who left
her and swept beyond that made history, not
the remnants of all the tribes of Asia that re
mained behind. These remnants stagnated,
settling in straggling villages across the rich
black earth of her plains or along the easy
waterways of her forests, becoming slavish and
helpless under the bondage of landlords, pre
serving in their dark, untaught lives all that
6 PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
was backward and ignorant, all that Europe
outgrew with the ages. So in the end man
kind forgot to count on the chance that any
thing great or pew could arise out of the vast
plains of the Slavic peoples. Then came the
Russian Revolution, and from it a new peasant
emerged, proving to the world that no inherent
defects, but long economic slavery, had kept
him in darkness.
What the newly awakened peasant, in his
great numbers, with the vast collective unde
veloped wealth at his disposal, may mean in
future world history is something to stimulate
the imagination. Certainly he will not play
the passive part that has been his in the past.
Already the Russian Revolution is the major
fact in the history of our generation in its
direct effect on all the backward peoples of
Asia and its indirect reverberations through
out the world. And yet this great peasant
mass has only begun to awake and stretch its
limbs, and make up its mind about its future.
The background of peasant Russia, now
breaking up, preserves still the effect of its
past. There was no Reformation; the ancient
church kept to modern days the confused su
perstitions of the Middle Ages. There was no
land reform; the feudal era with serfdom sur
vived until sixty years ago. Modern factories
came only with the past generation, and im
posed largely by foreign or absentee capital
upon a still patriarchal population, created the
barracks system of industrial existence. In
the villages families remained subject to the
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA 7
Old Man, and under his direction kept up th©
three-field system of agriculture, discarded by
Europe a century ago—one field for winter
sowing, one for spring planting, and one to lie
fallow and rest. The division of land, the tools
for Its use, remained unbelievably primitive.
Throughout the central part of Russia in the
days just before the war, there were still three
home-made wooden plows to every metal plow.
This was in the more advanced parts of the
land.
On the more backward fringes, the northern
tundras and the central Asian plains, life was
still more primitive. I have traveled for three
days by rail across a continuous stretch of
northern country where, before the revolution,
of two hundred thousand farming families only
one in seven used a metal-tipped plow. The
government factory, opened four years ago to
make farm implements, did not make plows;
it contented itself with making the metal blade
of the plow in large quantities, since this was
all the local peasants could afford to buy, and
was in itself a great step forward. The women
throughout this district (Karelia, running a
thousand miles northeast of Leningrad) were
farther back than the days of the spinning-
wheel and tread-loom. They spun with a
distaff in a single hand; they wove with a
small hand-loom, pulling the levers down with
one hand and thrusting through with the other.
A traveler of my acquaintance found in one of
their villages an ancient saw, which they’had
received as a present and which had gone dull
to the sorrow of the entire village, which knew
nothing of sharpening it. In the southern half
of the same district the ancient monastery of
Solovietz acted as an industrial school and
taught the peasants simple handicrafts, such
as weaving and tool-repairing—artisan work
only, as advanced as Europe was two centuries
ago.
At the other extreme of the Soviet Union,
on the burning plains and deserts of Asia, live
nomad races that have never yet settled down
to agriculture, whose source of life is found in
the cattle with which they rove northward and
southward in search of grass. In the far north
and east of Siberia, a journey of months by
sleigh from the railroads, live still other races
not unlike our Alaskan Indians, subsisting on
herds of reindeer and the hunting of furs. All
of these peoples—over half a hundred races,
languages and nations—are now equal citizens
of the Soviet Republic. Unlike our treatment
of the earlier Indians, they are taken into part
nership; they have the Soviet Power in their
own villages; their representatives sit in the
Central Congress in Moscow, sometimes not
even speaking Russian—broad-cheeked Yakutsk
and Mongol types from the northeast; white-
bearded, turbaned sages from Central Asia;
dashing Georgian mountaineers from the Cau
casus. All of these are equal citizens in the
Soviet • Republic, which has accepted the re
sponsibility of creating for all an equal educa
tion, equal chances in government, industry,
cultural development.
The great inequality of their present develop-
iment presents the first problem. In the use
oof land alone there are all stages side by side,
ifrom the nomad or hunting folks to the tractor.
IFirst stage above the peoples living on pasture
Hands come the villages throughout much of
I Siberia, where land is so plentiful that a
:method has developed of planting a single crop
on it to exhaustion and then moving on to
newer land. Next after this comes the three-
field system of the greater part of Russia; and,
last of all, in a few but increasing number of
places, modern agriculture on large scale, with
machinery and scientific knowledge.
It is often thought that the old estates of the
nobility had at least the advantage of large
scale modern farming and that the revolution,
by destroying them, seriously injured the fu
ture of farming in Russia. But of the hundred
million acres owned directly by landlords be
fore the revolution, only one-fifth was worked
by them or their overseers as large scale
farms. The rest was rented in small pieces
to the peasants, who reproduced on it their
own primitive methods, the landlord exploiting
merely his bare ownership of land and the
cheapness of peasant labor. Even in those
days of great estates, when 35 percent of the
land belonged to the peasants, 26 percent to
the landlords and 39 percent to the crown, the
actual land cultivation was done in small
peasant manner.
The rural landscape of the Soviet Union is
of a simple pattern. To the north the great
belt of tundras fringing the Arctic, with their
populations o£ hunters and fishers; then the
great belt of forests, comprising one-third of
all earth’s forests, two billion acres of primi
tive woods. This merges slowly and with much
mixed country into the treeless plains and
deserts of the south, lands rich and fertile
when water falls, but subject to drought. The
peasant huts of the far north are of logs built
in two stories, that the cattle may stay down
stairs and the people upstairs during the
frozen winters: the huts of the south are of
mud and straw, sometimes whitewashed or
painted bright colors. But save for difference
of wood supply, the pattern of the Russian
village is the same.
The peasant lives not on isolated farms, but
in villages—huts huddled together without san
itation or order, along wide chaotic roads
which in spring and autumn are chiefly seas of
mud. At such times life and movement ceases
between villages, for the primitive wooden
bridges rot or are borne away by spring floods,
and the roads themselves are full of holes in
which horses may become permanently mired.
In the summer the unimproved dirt road, made
by the passing of carts; in the winter the
snow road, made by passing of sleighs, consti
tute almost the sole communication except for
the rivers. Russia has only half a kilometer of
surfaced road and one kilometer of railroad to
every hundred square kilometers of her vast
land.
. The village houses themselves turn their
backs to the road, facing a courtyard sur
rounded by stables and barns. The whole vil
lage presents a disordered mingling ot much
wood, straw and hay stacks, thatched roofs,
ready to burn down with facility. Above the
huddled huts rises but one great structure, the
lofty domed church, visible for miles, symbol
once of the equally distant God and czar, before
whom the peasants were as grass.
Out from this village the peasants go to their
land, lying in strips of various sizes in many
places. Sixty years ago, when serfdom was
ended by the sale of land to the peasants on
55 year payments, the landlords kept the best
and central pieces, and the peasants received
Tagged odd lots in all directions. These were
still further divided in order that each family
might have its just share of good and bad lands
alike. In the northwest, one-fifth of all fami
lies have as many as 60 separate pieces of
land, though their total possession is well un
der twenty acres. Some of the pieces are five
or ten miles away and the harvest on them
does not repay the labor of securing it. This
mixing of lands occurs not only within villages,
but even between villages and townships,
where boundaries are largely unsurveyed, un
certain and contested. A single island in the
north, of 10,000 acres and 30 villages, is divided
into 700 different pieces, an average of - 23
pieces to each village; some of these are
twenty miles from the village owning them,
separated from it by possessions of various
other villages. Not only is such land hard to
reach, but the infinite subdivision into tiny
strips often makes it difficult for a man to
use a harrow on his strip without infringing
upon his neighbor; while the boundary ridges
waste a fair proportion of the soil and are
continuous sources of peats and weeds.
These impossible conditions of land distribu
tion would of themselves have been enough to
keep the Russian peasant in poverty, wasting
long days in trudging back and forth between
his many tiny pieces of earth, which could
never be properly guarded, fertilized or culti
vated because of their distance. But in addi
tion to lack of land and bad distribution of
land, there was incredible poverty of equipment
and livestock. Plows were largely home-made,
requiring much horsepower to drag them
through the heavy soil; threshing was often
done by trampling the grain on the earth. I
have myself seen a large circle of trampled
grain in the center of a village street with a
small boy sleeping on it through the night to
guard against possible thieves. In the morning
the slow, wearisome method of beating the
kernels from the stocks began again. While
these primitive methods required more horse
power than more advanced lands, the actual
number of horses was far below the European
standard. France and England had three times
as many horses per hundred acres of cultivated
land as had pre-war Russia.
Another serious hindrance to efficient farm
ing was the patriarchal family. Not only was
the peasant illiterate, and hence removed from
the chance of easily absorbing new ideas, but
even if a new idea by chance penetrated the
village It made no headway against the will
of the Old Ones who ruled life and custom.
The Russian Revolution has indeed, as often
charged, destroyed the "family,” and this is
one of its greatest contributions to progress.
For the family it destroyed was not the Anglo-
Saxon family of man, wife and minor children,
but tlie patriarchal family of several grown
sons, married and with children, yet all living
together under the common rule of the grand
parents.
I have told in another booklet, Changed Lives
in the Soviet Union, the story of a typical peas
ant, Ivan, as he himself related it to me. He
was born in a one-roomed cottage in which
lived sixteen people—all members of one “fam
ily.” There was Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle
and Aunt, Father and Mother, the six children
of Uncle and the four children of Father. It
was Grandpa, the Old One, who was boss in
that home. He hired out Father to work as
coachman for the lord, and sent Uncle to a
distant factory in the winter, receiving all their
wages to spend for the common household.
Under his orders the two grown women worked
in the fields, while Grandma looked after the
children at home.
Such was the typical organization of the
peasant family. Under it the standards of
Grandpa ruled in agriculture, and the standards
of Grandma in family life. It was a system de
vised to perpetuate old traditions and prevent
the emergence of new ideas. Furthermore.
Grandpa himself could not change the distribu
tion of his land, or the rotation of crops upon
it; tills could only be done by common voice
of the village, since each man’s strips were
part of the communal village fields. The vil
lage “mir,” or council, which made such deci
sions has been thought by many writers to be
the origin of the present Soviet system of
government. But the old mir was never a
mass meeting of all village citizens, as the
custom is today in deciding village matters. It
was an assembly of the heads of households—
the council of the Old Ones, perpetuating old
traditions.
Under such control, there came little variety
into the farm methods or products of Russia.
Grain was the chief product, almost the only
one; primarily rye and wheat, following each
other continuously until the land was ex
hausted. Conditions of weather which injured
these basic crops left the peasant starving,
with no subsidiary crops to turn to for help.
In the entire area of Russia were only a mil
lion acres of vegetable gardens, some 250
square yards per peasant family, which could
easily have consumed for its own needs the
vegetables from three times as great an area.
Fruit also was so little raised that Russia im
ported yearly tens of millions of rubles’ worth
of fruit from abroad, although there is no land
better suited than that of large parts of Russia
for this valuable product.
The average peasant holding, even of such
badly distributed and badly worked land, was
less than twenty acres. When to this is added
the conditions of land distribution, the lack of
livestock and implements, the prevailing ig
norance, it is not surprising that the Russian
peasant produced less per acre than any peas
ant of Europe, His production of wheat per
acre was half that of France, one-third that of
England and Belgium, one-fourth that of Hol
land.
Yet, because of the great size of the land,
the Russian peasant was collectively the rich
est in the world, while individually one of the
poorest. His sown area, 240 million acres, was
the largest in the world, the United States of
America coming second. He was the greatest
wheat, rye and barley producer in the world.
In number of cattle he was second only to the
United States. In sugar beets, flax, hemp and
many other cultures he ranked among the first
in production, but among the last in productiv-
. ity per acre. The labor of twenty million peas
ant families in these intolerably broken fields,
carting produce over scores of miles of dirt
roads, supported a whole hierarchy of nobles
and the most gorgeous court of Europe, too
luxuriously inefficient even to organize these
peasant beasts of burden into efficient produc
tion. Russian grain went out to feed the in
dustrial regions of Europe, buying in return
for privileged upper groups all the luxury that
pre-war Europe could produce. But the peas
ant producers remained illiterate, superstitious,
dark.
THE COMING OF THE REVOLUTION
The rapid growth of Russian peasant farni-
lies, pushing against the barriers of the land
system, produced more than one revolt before
the final revolution. In 1905 were upheavals
in many parts of the land, all following a com
mon instinctive pattern—a seizing of lands and
cattle from landlords and its division among
the landless by locally elected land committees.
These uprisings were suppressed in blood;
they occurred similarly after the fall of the
czar and the various provisional governments
tried to suppress them, creating only disorder.
It remained for the Bolsheviks to give legal
form to the demands and acts of the peasants,
thus satisfying the rural masses and creating
their own basis of power.
The first Land Decree of the Bolsheviks,
passed on the second day of the Revolution,
was by no means their own idea; they did not
even approve of it. • It was the expression of
the will of the peasants; the landlord's land,
livestock, implements went over without pay
to the peasants, under control of local land
committees. The Bolsheviks were -aware that
the immediate effect of this was to divide the
land into still more pieces, increasing the un
economic system of farming. Their own pref
erence was for large scale farming, under state
or co-operative management—a “grain factory,”
they called it. But, said Lenin: “The law is
not ours; we do not agree with its formula;
but we pass it, because it is the demand of the
mass of the peasants, and the demands of the
mass of any working population can only be
outlived by themselves.”
From the beginning, however, through “in.-
structlons” and “advice” to local land commit
tees, the Bolsheviks tried to secure the main
tenance of a certain number of well furnished
farms as state possessions, gathering on them
the best of the cattle for breeding purposes,
aiming to establish eventually demonstration
farms. In February, 1919, they passed their
second Land Law, the law of "nationalization,”
whereby ultimate title to all land was vested
in the "government of the toilers,” with its
use given out to individual peasant households
through local land committees. At the same
time, to prevent the growth of rich peasantry
who might ultimately become themselves
landlords, the land committees were instructed
not only to seize the landlord’s land, but to
equalize land distribution within the village.
Organized efforts were made to establish
throughout the land “Committees of Poverty,”
consisting of the poorer and landless peasants,
and these received much political weight in
preventing the land from being grabbed by
some locally influential well-to-do peasant.
Frequently the landlord’s estate, instead of be
ing divided entirely into small pieces, was
taken over by a collective of the landless ones,
who farmed it in common. Today 4 percent
of the sown area of Russia is farmed by col
lectives or government farms; the rest is still
in the hands of small scale peasantry.
Across the lands of the peasant, civil war
raged for more than three years. His cattle,
already reduced by the exactions of the World
War, were further reduced by the demands of
contending armies. His implements could not
ibnV^1ieni8heVor Russian factories were mak-
ug only munitions and foreign factories were
behind a blockade. The new Soviet Govern-
ment, fighting for existence, found only one
source of income—the peasant’s grain. This
it took, all of it, sometimes leaving enough I
for the peasant’s own food and seed, but fre
quently, through over-zealous local officials, not
even leaving that. Theoretically, the govern
ment expected to give the peasant implements
and manufactured articles in return for his
grain; but practically there were none to give.
The workers starved, the peasants wen^ with- '
out tools, clothing, seed; the war devoured all.
For three years this continued, growing
steadily worse. The peasant began to cease
plowing, partly from want of plows and horses
and partly because he got no good of his grain.
Local uprisings grew frequent; a common
method was to kill the grain collectors and
stuff their disemboweled bodies with the grain
they came for. Such was the grim background
of life and struggle against which the Soviet
power still managed to survive, to beat back its
foreign foes, and to turn at last to a considera
tion of the internal peasant situation. The New
Economic Policy, passed in the spring of 1921,
in essence the guarantee to the peasant of
+1 e right to keep his grain and sell it in a free
tUrket From this right to a free grain mar-
fH^c-nring ah the other features of the present
ket si state controlled capitalism in Russia.
form UL
the peasant at last was free to sow
Just as for his own use, the drought of 1920
his fields
foollowed by the greatest recorded drought of
hiistory in 1921, brought on the famine, reduc-
img rural Russia to its lowest ebb. Millions
ddied of starvation, other millions roamed the
Hand in search of grass and leaves for food.
TThe planted acreage sank from 235 million
meres in 191G to 150 million acres in 1921; from
tthis point it has since climbed steadily to reach
tin 1925 220 million acres. That it has not
mlready surpassed pre-war records is due not
'to the will of the peasant, but to his poverty
:in equipment and animals. Not so quickly can
a land recover the ravages of eight years of
war. Germany and France, also, which suf
fered half as long a war as Russia, lost during
those years 40 percent of their productivity.
THE SOVIET VILLAGE
The cost of war and revolution was heavy,
but its gains are proportionately great. The
future of the Russian peasant lies now in his
own hands. More than any farmer on earth,
he has perpetual right of access to land, which
he cannot lose even by bad crops or on mort
gage. He manages his local government di
rectly, and sends peasants like himself to sit
in the Central Congress of Soviets. His taxes
grow steadily less; they are now one-fourth
those of czardom, and he knows that the gov
ernment hopes eventually to abolish them alto
gether, living on its income from railroads and
industries and other government properties.
Yet the standard of living of the Russian
peasant is still at a low point which could
hardly be imagined in America except by some
o£ the poorest tenant farmers of the south.
Ninety percent of peasant families have still
less than twenty acres. The tax board of the
Soviet Government estimates the net income
from farm land as $7 an acre, and from a horse
as $10 a year. On this basis, the peasant’s
income is less than $150 a year in products.
His tax, averaging $1.50 per head of the rural
population, or $7.50 for an average peasant
household, is admittedly “one of his notable
and serious expenditures.” After the famine
it was estimated that 37 percent of all peasant
families had no horse at all, and 45 percent had
only one horse, leaving only 18 percent with
two horses or over.
Yet the road to plenty and po-wer and a rich,
full life, while long, lies straight ahead, and
the tools are in his own hands. There are no
landlords to hamper him; the banks are organ
ized not to exploit him, but through his own
co-operatives; his marketing facilities are pub
licly owned and managed, and if he does not
like as to some extent he doesn’t, the way
It ’ are managed, he is urged and encouraged
tn expand his own co-operatives for marketing
e^r>dq Education and co-operation are all
lVStghP needs—and time, for there are many
that he changes he must make, requiring
fundamental grOwth. In all of these, he
government to help him.
has tne b need is a redistribution of land to
jlis f>rsc . great distances and scattered
eliminate is now proceeding with increas-
strip3- " h tbe cost of ten to thirty cents per
ing rapidlty’
acre being assessed on the land-users bene
fited, with special government giants to dis
trict the lands of the poorest. Thirty-five mil
lion acres were districted in 1925-2G. Yet so
slow is this process that twenty-seven million
of these acres were only districted to the ex
tent of establishing fixed and convenient
boundaries between villages; only eight mil
lion reached the stage of convenient land dis
tribution within the village group itself.
In many districts there is not land enough
for the needs of the population. Migrations to
new lands are in these cases assisted by the
government which has already set aside for
distribution some forty million acres in easily
accessible districts to be given out during the
coming year, and holds as reserve for the year
following another sixty-five million acres in
more distant parts of Siberia and twenty-five
million in the Caucasus. The migrations are
taking place faster than the governmant can
handle them; five million souls are on the
move towards these new lands, and only one-
fifth of these are properly planned and organ
ized. The rest are volunteer squatters, taking
advantage of the law which allows them to
settle anywhere in the free land districts, and
claim title after five years work. Migrating
groups properly organized under government
direction are given many special privileges—
exemption for three years from taxes and mili
tary service, nominal rates on the railroads to
their new home, the right to retain their for
mer land for three years and to receive rent
for it.
Many organizations, voluntary and govern
mental, enter and influence the peasant’s life
in the village. Most of these are entirely new
since the revolution, others'are old forms into
which new content has been poured. The peas
ant’s chief contact with government is through
his village Soviet, the land laws, the taxes, the
state insurance, the schools, the reading huts,
the system of farm credits. The chief volun
tary organizations are the Peasant Mutual Help
Societies, the Co-operatives, the Young Peo
ple’s Communist League, which is especially
active in forming dramatic clubs, organizing
lectures and holiday demonstrations, initiating
movements for day nurseries, exhibitions and
other cultural activities. The Communist
Party itself is extremely small in rural dis
tricts, many villages having not a single adult
communist, but in practically all, the commu
nist organization of youth is influential in the
life and ideals of the young people.
The voluntary and government bodies over
lap and work together, since central govern
ment banks act through local co-operatives in
granting credits, and the various voluntary or
ganizations agitate and assist in the establish
ment of schools and nurseries. A rapid survey
of all these forces will indicate what elements
the peasant has to work with in building his
new future.
Land Laws. Under the czar 35 percent of
the land of European Russia belonged to the
peasants, 26 percent to the landlord, and 39
percent to the crown or church. Today all
land is in perpetuity the property of the "toil
ers’ government,” but "every citizen, without
regard to sex, creed or race, has the right to
demand land suitable for farming from the gov
ernment, and may secure it up to a certain
norm without any purchase or rent price.” He
may secure it (1) through his village as mem
ber of a land community, (2) from the land
departments of the goverhment, (3) by squat
ter’s rights, going to empty free land in cer
tain districts and working it for a period of
five years.
The land thus obtained belongs to him by
right of use and is lost if he ceases to work it.
He can neither mortgage nor sell it, but under
conditions of poverty and lack of equipment he
can rent it for a limited period of time. The
land rightly belongs not to the individual peas
ant, but to all members of his household
jointly: if he divorces his wife, she takes her
share of land with her; if he dies, the land is
.not "inherited,” since it already belongs, with-
cout formal inheritance, to his entire remaining
ffamily. If the family is blotted out by death,
tthe land reverts to the village.
A striking provision of the law declares that
a.ll the implements and livestock used for work-
img the land are similarly common household
piroperty, and cannot be mortgaged for the
deebts of any individual. Thus the father of
thae family no longer has the right to squan-
deer the family property for drink or personal
pleasures; it may only be mortgaged for pur
chases of joint need and benefit.
.24 PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
The Forest Laws again remind the peasant
that the land is only conditionally his. Two
billion acres of forest land cover 40 percent of
the entire surface of the Soviet Union and
form one-third of the world’s forests. Before
the revolution the peasant had 36 million acres
of forest land at his disposal; now he has
been granted the use of 62 million acres, more
than the total forest area of Germany. But
these -woods are his only under the forest laws
of the land which have three aims: (1) con
tinuous permanent use of forests; (2) supply
ing the working population with sufficient wood
free or at low cost; (3) getting the largest
possible government income.
Forests are divided into two groups—those
of local significance and those of national sig
nificance. These last—the greater forests, are
worked for profit by great government timber
companies, selling timber for building purposes
and exporting it abroad. The local forests are
given to the peasants, but their use must con
form to regulations laid down by the local
forester for preserving the woods permanently.
Woods may be cleared for farms on permit
from the land departments but if they form
wind-breaks or water-retainers of common bene
fit this permission is not given. The devasta
tion of the forests which has followed their
private exploitations in China and America
is something the Soviet Union intends to avoid.
Taxes. In the early days of revolution and
civil war, the Soviet Government took in place
of taxes, levies of the entire production of
girain. This policy was the result of war emer
gency and led to peasant discontents express
ing themselves in actual uprising, and in the
sstill more serious falling off in the planting
oof grain. In 1921 the grain levies ceased, and
ttheir place was taken by the grain tax, based
con the amount of land owned by the peasant
sand the general harvest situation of the region.
"This tax also has never been considered by the
'Soviet Government as a desirable method of
raising state funds, but as an emergency for
the period of reconstruction after the war.
It is the avowed intention of the government
to lessen all taxes with the ultimate aim of
abolishing them altogether, securing the state
revenue from the income of profitable state
properties—mills, factories, forests, mines.
"As fast as government income rises, it will
be possible to lower the tax on the peasants"
—this is the first principle adopted by resolu
tion of the communist party. In the years since
the New Economic Policy wras adopted the
peasant taxes have been steadily lowered, until
they amounted in 1925-26 to $120,000,000, an
average of $1.20 per head of rural population.
This sum included local as well as central
government taxes, but did not include the sums
for compulsory state insurance against fire and
loss of cattle. For 1926-27 the taxes have again
been raised to $150,000,000, or $1.50 per person;
but .60 percent of these are to be spent on local
needs, roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, so that
the amount received by the central government
has actually fallen again. This is in line with
the second principle adopted by the communist
2G PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
party regarding peasant taxes, “to spend the
taxes in such a way that the peasant will grow
richer from them and not poorer.” The need
of passable roads and bridges and agricultural
instruction is sufficient to justify much higher
taxes, as soon as agriculture can bear them;
for only through these facilities can peasant
wealth increase.
The form of the tax has changed slightly
from year to year. Its present form (1926-27)
resembles that of the graduated income tax, in
that the poorer peasants are exempt, while the
well-to-do pay amounts as their income in
creases. While the tax'itself seems exceedingly
small, yet the standard of Russian peasant liv
ing is still so low that the maximum income,
beyond which a peasant is considered extreme
ly well-to-do and subject to the highest taxa
tion, is only $50 per year per member of his
family. All amounts above this sum are taxed
25 percent. In estimating income, land is esti
mated to yield about $7 per acre, and horses
and cows some $10 to $12 per year—a modest
enough estimate. Taxes under the czar were,
together with land rents, $6.25 per person. At
present the peasant pays no land rent other
than his tax for his average "norm” of land,
though he may rent additional land if any is
available, either from the government, or from
other peasants unable to work their land.
Local Government. The village "Soviet,” or
council, is the local governing body in the vil
lage. If you enter a Russian village and ask
a small boy a question of importance, he will
FEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA 27
direct you at once to the "soviet house” as the
center of all information and authority. The
Soviet is elected at open village mass meeting
in the proportion of one to every hundred in
habitants. Immediately after the village elec
tions, the township "Congress of Soviets” elects
a township Executive Committee, which has
power to pass local ordinances involving penal
ties up to $1.50 fine or 5 day§’ hard labor.
From these local governing bodies elections
take place in an ascending scale up to the All
Union Congress of Soviets, the supreme author
ity of the land, to which large numbers of
peasants are sent as delegates directly from
their farms.
Two new features of the soviet organization
Jn the village indicate a remarkable attempt
tto bring government close to the masses. Var-
iious important laws proposed by the Central
Government are from time to time sent out
"'to the country” for discussion. The recently
proposed ‘‘Marriage Code” for instance, met
with opposition in the Central Congress. It
coould easily have been passed by a substantial
majority, but that is not the way they do things
in the Soviet’ Union, where laws are expected
to be discussed until they pass with practically
unanimous agreement. Finding a strong mi
nority opposition, the framers of the bill with
drew it and sent it for discussion "to the coun
try”’ in factory and village meetings. This dis-
■cussaion will pass no majority votes and call no
ollsa; it will merely keep on discussing until
ho matter becomes so clear that a new bill
an Ebe drawn which will meet with practically
no opposition. This form of law-making 1g
something new in the history of governments,
and illustrates the soviet theory of its own
government, as not a “parliament” or debating
organization, but an “executive committee”
carrying out the joint and common will of the
toiling masses, which is assumed to be, after
education and discussion, reasonably unani
mous.
The other remarkable feature of village poli
tics is the attempt to "draw into soviet work”
as large a part of the population as is willing
to serve. Anyone willing to work in the local
government is urged and encouraged to do so;
to go on tax commissions, commissions on
finance, on co-operation and trade, on educa
tion, on local improvements. Many local jeal
ousies prevent the full functioning of this ideal,
but villages are encouraged to brag about the
number of citizens they have "drawn into soviet
work.” Beyond this, say the remarkable in
structions sent out by the central government,
"the work of the village soviet must not limit
itself to its own labors and that of its com
missions, or it will not be fulfilling the ideal
of the soviet power to draw all the population
into the deciding of questions. Peasant meet
ings must be held; projected laws, both central
and local, should be discussed not only in soviet
sessions but in widest meetings.” ... It is,
of course, the ultimate soviet ideal, that these
various governmental forms shall become so
spontaneously a part of the entire population
that the State, in the sense of compulsion im
posed by one group upon another (even by a
majority upon a minority) shall disappear.
Mutual Help Committees. Closely in line
with this purpose of voluntary communal ac
tivity in place of government, are the Mutual
Help Committees and the Co-operatives. The
Peasant Mutual Help Committees, though en
tirely voluntary, comprise now 90 percent of the
rural population, organized in 57,802 societies.
They assume powers of self-taxation which are
almost governmental; some basing their collec
tions on land, some on livestock, some on tax
able property, but all taxing their members in
proportion to some of their possessions, and
using the funds chiefly for those in need or
suffering special misfortune, death, fire or loss
of animals. They have a wide range of activ
ities; they cultivate land for widows and fami
lies without horses; during the famines they
organized the feeding kitchens; sometimes they
initiate Reading Huts, or run “Red Tea-
Houses,” as a fight against the saloon! They
run mills and creameries, differing from the
co-operatives which also run mills and cream
eries, and threshers and tractors, in that they
are entirely non-commercial, and their aid is
given, not equally to all members, but especially
to the unfortunate. They will buy threshers
and charge a fair rate for the service to all.
ordinary peasants, giving service free to the
poorest. They aim, however, to avoid the
stigma of being a “philanthropic” organization,
regarding themselves as a mutual help organ
ization with a communist spirit, to which each
contributes according to his means and from
which each draws according to his needs. Half
a million families each year get either financial
or labor help from them—that Is, one peasant
family in forty.
Slate Insurance. In connection with help in
misfortune must be mentioned the system of
state insurance, which for five years has been
compulsory, and which now insures (October,
1926) 19,378,000 peasant cottages against fire,
170 million acres against hail, 25,171,000 cattle
and 8,864,000 horses against death. Insuring
on such an enormous scale, without need to
accumulate reserves or pay dividends, the gov
ernment has been able to reduce payments to
the absurd amount of 40 cents a year for a
house, w’hile in case of fire the damages paid
amount to $100. Horses are insured for $1.50
a year and cows for 40 cents, the payments in
case of death being $25 and $15 respectively.
Insurance for higher amounts is voluntary and
is being increasingly used by the peasants to
protect-themselves completely against loss. The
State Insurance also carries on constructive
propaganda for fire prevention, and disease
prevention among animals.
Co-operatives. As commercial and producing
organizations the co-operatives are more fully
discussed in the booklet “How Soviet Russia
Does Business.” There are several kinds of
them; pure consumers’ co-operatives conducting
retail trade in the villages; agricultural co
operatives buying tractors or machinery joint
ly, or arranging jointly for the sale or further
manufacture of their produce; credit co-oper
atives, handling loans to peasants.
Five million peasant families belong to these
co-operatives, one-fourth of the entire popula
tion. This is, however, only half the number
that belonged to co-operatives before the war.
A glimpse into their manifold activities shows
that they employ 1,500 agricultural experts.
manage 4,000 seed-sorting points, 2,500 service
points for breeding, run 7,000 local creameries,
500 flour mills, 200 vegetable oil factories. The
credit societies average one to a township, with
funds for local loans of about $20,000, some of
it from local depositors, but more of it from
the large sums set aside by the government for
peasant credits.
The present system of peasant credits was
opened by the Soviet Government in 1924 by
the founding of the Central Agricultural Bank
with a capital of $23,000,000 which was tripled
the following year and is still increasing. In
their official announcement of policy, they
stated that the chief economic needs of the
rural population are: (1) proper distribution of
land; (2) sufficient seeds, implements, live
stock; (3) the best agricultural knowledge.
The system of peasant credits is designed to
furnish the second of these needs, and to a
certain extent to help even in encouraging
proper methods. There are now 52 provincial
branches of the Agricultural Bank. The actual
local granting of credits, however, is carried
on through 8,000 co-operative credit societies,
which secure funds from the Agricultural Bank
and loan them again to their members.
In the giving of loans, efforts are made to
32 PEASANT HFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
encourage and develop the more profitable
forms of agriculture. The instructions issued
by the central government to credit cooper
atives state that each local society must make
a careful study of the farming peculiarities of
its district, and use the power of credit to
encourage development in the most profitable
direction. Thus in a northern province, where
conditions are excellent for dairying, and flax,
but poor for wheat and rye, no loans will be
made for seed to plant rye or wheat, but loans
will be made to bring improved flax seed into
the district or to buy a pure bred bull for the
service of the community. In this way the
power of credit as well as that of education, is
used to direct peasant husbandry in improved
channels.
Cultural Life. The new forms of cultural
life coming into the rural districts of the Soviet
Union are discussed more at length in “Edu
cation in the Soviet Union.” Most striking is
the rapid expansion of "Reading Huts” and
“Liquidation Points” for the liquidation of
illiteracy. Village schools also are steadily in
creasing but slowly as yet, for schools are ex
pensive and the country is still poor. The
significant feature about the present schools
is not their number, which is still quite inade
quate, but their new courses of study dealing
with farming and actual village life, and later
relating the child, through actual excursions,
with the life of the city. They train him to
be a conscious citizen as the old schools never
did. Furthermore, an intelligent peasant boy
or girl, showing aptitude for some branch of
study, has now the chance to go further to
technical schools and universities on a scanty
government stipend. This is a chance he never
had before and the energizing effect of the
young people of the rural districts is very
great.
While schools expand slowly but steadily,
various less expensive cultural activities de
pending more on zeal than money grow rapid
ly. Within the past few years have been or
ganized 5,000 township libraries, serving 30,000
“Reading Huts” and “Reading Corners.” “Lik-
Points” for the liquidation of illiteracy are
within the reach of practically every adult
willing to take the trouble to learn. News
papers are read aloud by zealous “young com
munists” to those who cannot read. Day nur
series to the number of thousands are carried
on in summer when the women work in the
fields, and modern ideas of sanitation and child
care make their way thus into the village. A
tremendous movement of amateur dramatics,
unprecedented in the history of any nation,
has swept the village young people, until prac
tically no village is complete without one or
more dramatic societies. Radio also has ar
rived and the back country peasants hear con
certs in Berlin and Moscow.
One of the really notable movements in the
Soviet Republic today is the “Smichka,” or
"Get-Together” of city workers and rural peas
ants. Throughout Europe the aims of these
groups of the population continually clash,
leading to rival political parties representing
the two groups in frequent government con
flicts. Constant efforts are made to prevent
this in the Soviet Republic by every method
which can encourage mutual understanding.
In pursuance of this, every factory or group
of city workers adopts some village or town
ship, and becomes a “shef” or “big brother” to
this rural district. The factory workers go
down to the country on Sundays and holidays,
often rebuild broken schools, equip peasant
dramatic clubs, or send periodicals and books
to the peasant Reading Hut. Occasionally they
organize a “Day of the Red Peasant” in which
propaganda on new methods of farming is the
order of the day.
The newspaper is coming into the village
at last. Relatively few villages as yet receive
them regularly, for distances are great and
transportation difficult. A postoffice near
Leningrad is making a special experiment of
opening 23 rural stations for the purpose of.
newspaper delivery within a day from the"
date of issue.
Besides the movement which comes from the
city to the village, there aie many movements
starting among the peasants themselves. Inde
pendent peasant congresses to discuss better
farming are organized by local soviets. In a
typical district, 1500 peasants attended for four
days congress; half of them were women.
The outer form of all this new culture is still
poverty-stricken and crude. Dramatic clubs
struggle to make scenery without materials;
the volumes in the “Reading Hut” are paper-
covered and quickly torn. Growth in all direc
tions is harsh and uneven; one village, with
an energetic young chairman of its soviet
makes progress, while its neighboring village
remains strangled by graft and incompetence.
Stark poverty in the sour northern lands
chokes even the energetic and aspiring, while
in the fertile regions progress comes more
easily. In all the villages the economic basis
must come first; the government rightly at
taches first importance to the proper redis
tricting of land, then to the buying of machin
ery and selected seed through peasant credits,
to education through agricultural experts and
agricultural exhibitions which are now becom
ing a fact in thousands of villages.
Already the Russian peasant is showing that
■the darkness and ignorance of generations was
no inherent lack in nature, but the result of
the oppressions under which he labored. He is
still far worse off materially than the peasant
of England, France and Germany, or the farm
er of America, worse off materially even than
he was in the old days before long wars
exhausted tools and cattle. But the lands and
opportunities open to him are as great, per
haps greater than those open to any farming
population in the world.
For more than a hundred years we Amer
icans have glimpsed fortune and progress in
terms of the great free lands of our West.
Venturesome pioneers from worn out farms of
older states sought there a homestead and in
dependence; great capitalists sought there mil
3G PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
lion-acre timber holdings and railway empires.
Aspiring progressives sought there the last
chance of man to create in unspoiled land a
society nearer his heart’s desire, saying that
here was the last free land, the last open oppor- J
tunity to make a different world. . . . And f
now that our homesteads are taken, our lands /
possessed for good or ill by definite owners,
and the final dream of man is not yet created,
-7-behold, we find we have not used up the
last free earth after all. On the other side of
the world is a land yet greater, where a third
of earth’s forests are yet uncut, where many
hundred million acres of open prairie have not
felt the touch of the plow.
Russia, Siberia, the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics, one-sixth of earth’s surface still thin
ly populated. A mighty treasure house of coal
and oil and iron still barely explored. In extent
from north to south like the United States,
Canada and Alaska taken together, and from
east to west more than double our American
distance. Here is a new chance for mankind
to try again the experiment of fashioning a !
just and happy human society,—and a newly J
awakened people, fresh from the soil, bent on
making that experiment succeed. Determined
this time to keep the earth and its riches from
private control, in the hands of all the people,
under laws which will preserve its forests,
safeguard its mineral wealth against waste,
and give every child yet unborn common share
in the common treasure. Here again is the
hope and challenge of free land and new pur
pose,—the last, greatest West of the world!
THE PEASANTS THEMSELVES SPEAK OUT*
The collective voice of the peasant is by no

means an easy thing to obtain. Scattered across
the mighty stretch of the largest Republic on
earth, with varying conditions of climate, soil,
transport, market conditions and culture, the
fruits of the Revolution have been by no means
identical in all regions. There are sections of
rich black soil where the overthrow of land
lords has meant immediate enrichment; there
are wooded sections of poor soil where develop
ment will be long and slow and where no land
lord’s earth enriched the peasants. There are
sections in Siberia where land was always plen
tiful and sections in White Russia where no
Revolution can make it adequate for popula
tion. Added to all these varieties of economic
background, there is a profound difference be
tween the older generation of peasants, cling
ing to the old ways and customs under which
they ruled village life, aud the younger gen
eration enthusiastically organizing reading
huts, dramatic clubs, agricultural exhibitions.
In no single place, perhaps, can as great a
variety of peasants, from as many sections
of the land be found, as in the Peasants’ Sana-
•The complete tale of the life of a peasant for
merly and now, will be found in the booklet
Chantjcd Lives in the Soviet Itevublic; under the
heading "John, the Son of John.’’
3S PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
toriuin of Livadia, in the former summer palace
of the czar. Peasant Congresses are colored
naturally by the peculiar political questions
that led to their calling. But the inmates of
the Peasants’ Sanatorium are chosen for reasons
of health, representing a random cross section
of peasant life. Women from beyond the north
ern woods on the edge of the Siberian Arctic,
men from the hot deserts of Central Asia, scores
of peasants from all the central regions of
Russia are here gathered at a time when they
.are free to talk, since no duties call them.
Yet this sanatorium, unlike the many others
now opening for peasants, has a political aim
as well as a health purpose. Located as it is
in the gorgeous halls of former czardom, it is
desired that peasants from all parts of the land.
shall come to it, irrespective of the cost of
transportation. In other sanatoriums, condf-
-tions of distance, cost and convenience govern.
the assignment of patients. But for Sanator
ium No. 1, beds are distributed equally to
every province and county of the Soviet Union.
So that they may come from the east and the
-west, from the north and the south, and meet
together in Joint discussion and a joint compre
hension, saying together: “We, it is we our
selves who sit in the halls of Nicholas.”
It is a glorious setting, never to he forgotten
"by those who have the privilege of seeing it.
On the most beautiful heights of the south
Crimean shores is a hundred acre park, ex
quisitely landscaped, sweeping down to the
.deep blue waters of the sea. The building it-
B.elf gleams with marble; its many sculptured
courtyards blaze with scarlet flowers In and
oout move peasant men and women, in their hos-
ipital suits of linen, sunning themselves on the
tterraces, strolling along the beautiful paths,
Esent here by county health departments from
tthe great plains and deserts, from the northern
'timber regions, from even the farthest tundra.
There are club rooms with games; there are
concerts, motion pictures, lectures; there is a
large reading room with a good library. It
was here that I went often, gathering together
a small group of peasants taken at random and
asking them what difference the Revolution
has brought in their lives. It was a question
which never failed to start interested discus
sion, drawing around it an ever-widening group.
In the end they would always counter with
questions about American farmers, for the Rus
sian peasants are gaining through their revo
lution and their present reading an interna
tional interest.
Here, for instance is a man from Siberia,
another from the Maritski district near Kazan
where a tribe of Finnish origin has since the
revolution been granted autonomy in the very
heart of Russia, another from Archangel in the
far north, another from the south-eastern steppe
near Tsaritsin, and two from the Minsk district
of White Russia, near the borders of Poland.
“All corners of the land” they say smiling,
when I have called the roll of their origins.
I ask my usual question—what difference has
the revolution brought them?
The younger' peasant from Minsk speaks
■40 PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
up; he is the youngest and most energetic of
the group, a clean-shaven man in his early
twenties. “A very big difference. First, the
taxes are lower. The poor don’t pay them at
all. The well-to-do pay more in proportion,
but even for them it is less than formerly.”
The man from Tsaritsin disputes this. “In
our district the rich pay morei than formerly.
Near me lives a very rich peasant with sixteen
cows and eight horses; he has three steel plows
working for him in the spring. He pays more
taxes than formerly because he employs labor
for profit. But there are only four such fam
ilies among our 300 households.”
“Such exploiters of labor do not exist in our
village,” replies Young Minsk. “No doubt they
would be highly taxed if we had them. With
us there are some well to do peasants with
many horses, but their sons drive the plow;
they hire labor only at harvest.”
The man from Maritski district speaks: “I
will tell you about our region. The poor got
free lumber. I myself got six cubes of lumber
and built with it a cottage and a storehouse. If
I must buy such wood it would cost thirty
roubles.”*
Young Minsk exclaims: “With us such wood
costs sixty roubles.”
“And with us, comrade,” says the man from
Tsaritsin, smiling, “it would cost three hun-
•Words used Jn actual discussion will not be
changed Into their American equivalent. A rouble
Is fitty cents; a verst is three-fifths of a mile : a
Mcsiattn is 2.6 acres.
drred roubles. We do not use wood at all to
buiild houses.”
The man from Maritski looks appalled at the
ctost of wood, and continues: “Well, since the
Revolution we have schools in our own lan
guage. Not everywhere yet; one cannot build
tso many schools quickly. But wherever there
iis’no school there is a Lik-Point;* these are
•easy to organize in a soviet house or a peas
ant’s house.”
"Are schools or Lik-Points in reach of every
one in your district?” I ask.
“Well, it is hard to say what is ‘in reach?
Certainly children without shoes and sheep
skins cannot go even two versts to school in
winter. But a youth or man has winter cloth
ing and goes even further. ... In the old
days it was not a matter of two versts but of
ten or twenty, which not even a man could do
in winter. . . . Schools or Lik-Points can be
reached now in our district by all who have
energy and winter clothes.”
Tsaritsin speaks: “Our Mutual Help gave
shoes to many poor children so that they could
go to school.”
“We have not got so far,” says the man from
Maritski. “The famine was bad with us. But
then also the government helped us. Seed they
gave enough for half our land. And when the
♦Lik-Point, i.e., point for Liquidation of Illiteracy,

adult classes in reading.
42 PEASANT LIFE JN SOVIET RUSSIA
harvest came in 1923 they did not tax us and
did not even ask for the seed back again. .
Another thing is better now. The government
is nearer. Once we went 20 versts to the town
ship and 120 versts to the county; no peasant
ever went, it was so far. But now they have
these new ‘region’ divisions, and the region is
20 versts from us, while the township is right
in our village.”
Young Minsk speaks up: “With us it is the
opposite. The regions are larger than the
former counties and farther away. But all the
same government is nearer. For we do every
thing now in our Village Soviet, get permits,
licenses, settle our affairs.”
“Would you all say in general that govern
ment is easier to reach now?” I asked.
“Certainly, government is easy to reach now.
That is understood everywhere.”
The man from Maritski takes up the land
question again: “In our district is little farm
land, it is mostly forest. After we got all the
government land, it was not enough to give us
a desiatin and a half to every eater. So the
government gave us state forest land which we
are clearing.”
Young Minsk: “Everywhere the poor got
land. With us it was the landlord’s land.”
The Siberian peasant now enters the discus
sion: “With us was always plenty of land.
But for all that the-poor had none, since one
must buy land with money. Now land is free,
we do not pay money; we took all the lamli
our village and evened it up, and the Mutual
Help gives aid to the poor. It loans seed and
gives easy tariff for threshing and reaping. It
sorts the seed for the poor free of charge. It
gives wood also and if there is a death in the
family, it gives sometimes money.”
Remembering, as I do, the general American

view that the poor remain poor through their
own shiftlessness, I ask now: “Does this help
really put the poor peasants on their feet?”
. . . They look at me in surprise: “How
should a man not get on his feet if he has land
and a horse and seed?”
“But are not many poor through their own

stupidity or drunkenness?”
Young Minsk answers for them all: “Of
course there are many drunken peasants. But
when the Mutual Help gives money for a horse,
do you think they do not look closely to see
how the money is used? Sometimes it might
happen that a peasant used the money waste-
fully, but it could not easily happen. The com
mittee would be blamed by all the peasants
if they were so careless with the funds. We
would soon choose another Mutual Help Com
mittee.”
“All peasants in our district,” says the man
from Tsaritsin, “are members now of Mutual
Help. Each gives five pounds of grain from
every desiatin. Now even the poor can learn,
since Mutual Help buys pencils and books for
their children.”
By questions I learn that membership in Mu
tual Help is voluntary, but that the benefits of
free books, free seed, loans without interest, go
only to the poor. I ask whether there is not
a tendency on the part of the richer peasants
to stay out of the Mutual Help, which taxes
them more and gives them less. All the peas
ants smile and the man from Tsaritsin answers:
“Let them stay out if they wish. Who is guar
anteed against fire or death? If a man gets
sick and orders medicine, he gets it free if he
is a member of Mutual Help. Many other
things a man must pay high for unless he
belongs to Mutual Help. It is very strong, it
has mills from the government and reapers and
threshers. It is useful for everyone to belong
even if he does not get free school-books.”
The question shifts to education. Young
Minsk maintains: “There are more schools
than formerly. That also is good. Our dis
trict used to have two primary schools of four
years; now we have four of these and one
seven-year school. One of the lower schools
is Jewish in their own language.”
The older man from Minsk now for the first
time enters the discussion with a sour look.
“Where schools were before, there they remain.
There are no new ones. Our school burned
down four years ago, and we ask and ask the
government for a new one, but nothing comes.”
It is the first break in the universal boost-
PEASANT LIFE in SOVIET RUSSIA <5
Ing. The rest look annoyed. T,tiei>?u<.’f£f

taken up by an energetic youth in his ea y
twenties? one of three Tartars from Kazan
who have been listening for some time. wnat
does the government say to your request , he
asks. Do they refuse you wood or a teacher?
“No,” admits Old Minsk, “They gave us wood,
but they asked us to haul it ourselves. It is
twenty versts away; what do they expect of
us?”
Pointed inquiry from the young /Tartar shows
that the government offered free lumber, nails,
glass, and a certain sum of money for labor,
besides the pay of the teacher, but expected the
local peasants to furnish transportation with
their own horses and do a certain amount of
the unskilled labor of building. Young Kazan
scoffs openly: “The families in our village are
not so lazy as yours, comrade. I myself am
president of the village soviet there, so I know.
We organized a special week after harvest for
the school. We cut the wood, hauled it, cleaned
it. Now we have a fine school.”
Tsaritsin with a kindly smile, comes to the
rescue of Old Minsk., “Now, comrades, maybe
that village is hard’ up. The Poles invaded
there. How many horses have you?”
Old Minsk admits to one hundred households
and two hundred horses. A gasp of indigna
tion goes around the group at the wealthy
village which has not energy enough to^haul
wood for a school. Old Minsk protests: “Half
the horses are no good.” But even one hundred
horses seems adequate wealth to the others. I
catch the undertones: “Lazy lot.” The Kazan
youth grins michievously: “What taxes did
you pay, comrade?”
"Eighteen roubles,” says Old Minsk.
“And for eighteen roubles the government
should not only pay a Red Army to protect
you from the Poles, and mend your bridges
and pay your teacher, but should also haul
your wood for you.” Everyone laughs. Siberia
breaks into the discussion.
“In our village are 160 households. Former
ly there was a school three versts away in the
towns* ip center, but none in our village. We
took the church and made a school of four
classes. Now they have to go to the township
center to church.”
Tsaritsin nods, grinning: “Praying got
harder now, but schooling got easier.”
Remembering as I do the habits of western
prairie towns in America I ask: “But couldn’t
they use it on Sundays for a church?”—All
stare at me in total non-comprehension and the
Siberian exclaims: “How‘could it be a church?
They took out all the ikons!”
The man from Tsaritsin now starts a long
discussion on schools: “We had two three-year
schools before in our districts; now we have
four four-year schools. Girls now go to school
also, together with the boys. There were two
teachers; now there are six. But most impor-
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA «
taut is the difference in lessons. He?
Now they have drawing, and sculpture

?n rinv and cutting colored papers, and little
workshops and a garden. They also make ex
cursions and collect leaves and plants.
"My two daughters last summer—one of them

all summer collected everything, leaves, twigs,
grasses, flowers, and pasted them on paper and
wrote about them. The other girl collected
nothing at all, it didn’t interest her. That is
what schools are for now,—to find out every
child’s special interest. Then the clever ones
can go to town to special schools for the things
they like.”
“Also they learn government. They visit

the village soviet and the Muutal Help. They
learn who gets help and why. They went to
town and saw a factory and electricity and a
telephone and a motion picture. The school
has its own management elected from the chil
dren, with a president and a sanitary com
mittee and a court. If a boy comes to school
with dirty hands, the sanitary committe points
him out .in general assembly. Formerly if a
child didn’t learn his lesson the teacher
whipped him, or stood him in a corner or sent
him home; but now the children’s committee
takes him and explains that he is only hurt
ing himself. It is forbidden now to slap faces
or pull ears.”
The peasant from Archangel, a medium-sized
sandy-haired man, enters the discussion a little
proudly. “We are a cultured folk where I live,
on the northern waterways from Leningrad to
the White Sea. Always we prized learning.
We are not backward people, but original
Great Russians. Yet all my father’s striving
could not put me beyond the seventh grade
in the town school. I finished three years in
our village and four in the town; my father
sacrificed much; my family went on little food
in winter so that I might have learning. Then
I graduated first in my class and hoped for, a
government scholarship to go to Petersburg.
But they gave the scholarship to the priest’s
son who graduated second. Never will I forget
that day. His father had a good house and
could buy him plenty of books. Yet he got
help because he was the son of a priest. Only
after the Revolution could I get more school
ing; now I have finished the Agricultral Uni
versity and gone back to teach better farming
among my people.”
He went on to tell of the uncultured, back
ward tribes in the extreme north, hundreds of
miles even beyond his village. “There on the
tundra they do not sow and reap. They live
on thousands of reindeer; these give them food
and transport and clothing of fur and leather.
They live fat, but dark. They have no hygiene
and are very unhealthy. Much trachoma is
there and they do not know what to do about it.
But now since the Revolution whole medical
expeditions go there and establish health cen
ters. Very many of the youth have been
brought from there and given university train
ing and sent back to their people to bring
. tWE IN soviet
peasant Lire not come
«*’U youn6; people/’
_ .i <<<• i-int even before the It

‘It seems,’ I said, that. a desire for
}et‘rOn“nySOU HVowBmeany of the children used to
geet some form of schooling.
“Half the hoys learned to read and wiite,
going to school for a year or two, perhaps
tthree. But the girls went hardly at all. Now
all the children in our district go. If they don’t
go, there is neighborhood talk against the par
ents. Those who have no warm clothing get
excused in the coldest part of winter.”
The young peasants from Kazan now claimed
the floor: “We had always culture in our
midst, in the famous Kazan University. But
now we have also schools in our own Tartar
language in the villages. The University also
saves a certain number of places for us Tartars,
since we are more backward than Russians,
for want of training, and if we must compete
freely with them, we could not get many places
in the university.”
The bell was ringing for dinner—the ancient
bell about which the almost equally ancient
porter said to me: “Once I rang it for Nicholas
to pray to God, now I ring it for peasants to
drink tea.” The group in the Reading-Room
broke up. Outside on the terrace I found next
day after lunch a peasant of an entirely dif
ferent type, an elderly woman, with white ker
chief on her head, sitting under the arbor of
the czar, knitting. Her life was centered in
us there were no landlords; our land is so poor
that no one wanted it. I live ninety versts
from the railroad, and it js all swamps and
woods. We cannot raise our own bread even.
Yet it is a little better now. We had the land
redivision and it is easier now to work. Be
sides we have cleared some woods, and we hear
we are going to get some more government
woods.”
Sandy-haired White Russian spoke sourly:
“The land is no better now than before. Some
had ten desiatins, some had one, it is still the
same. For three years we ask for the land
division; they promise and promise and never
do. There are many war invalids; I myself
am one. I fought as a volunteer against the
Poles. All the pension they give me is five
roubles a month. What is five roubles? Is it
money? I have only one desiatin and a half.
I ask you, can a man live on that with a wife
and child? As for the landlords’ estates, they
took the best of these for a collective and we
peasants got nothing.”
The Tambov peasant has been ill at ease
during this complaint. He now fires up. “Who
then was in the collective?”
“Those that had no land,” answers the White
Russian.
“Ah, so—peasants also . . . And why did you
not join? Surely they did not forbid you be
cause of your little desiatin.”
“Why should I give up my desiatin to take
peasant LIFE in soviet RUSSIA 53*
•th n milpctive9” growls the White
Russian6 "They tight always. Who knows if
Uey will succeed?" . . • But a combined grunt
from the rest of the peasants dismisses his
complaint; he had his chance anil refused it,
and now he grumbles at the special privilege
of the collective. The others have no further
use for him. Then a young peasant speaks:
“I also come from White Russia. Tt is true
that the land there is little. I have five eaters
in my family and used to have two and a quar
ter desiatins. Now I have more than five and
this is not yet the norm for our district. When
the boundaries are fixed between us and the
next village I shall have more. Also the land
lord’s estate—it is true the center of it was not
given to us but was made a demonstration
farm which is useful to all.”
“Is the work there done better than among
the peasants?” I ask him. . . . “Without a
doubt,” he answers.
“Do you live better now or formerly?” “Now,
of course,” he says firmly.
“I myself am a member of one of these col
lectives,” spoke up a tall sandy-haired man
whom I was to mistake frequently for the
man from Tambov. “We have thirty men, ten
women and eight children in our group and
are farming 300 desiatins, here in the Crimea.
We have a tractor and other machineis *
government sold them to us on credi former
years. We live in the buildings of a
6i peasant life IN SOVIET RUSSIA
landlord; we do not badly. We hnvp ton
Not much11 TWHI’kiniS). hforses and five toa18’’
H.?? .™uch' 1 thought, for forty adult workers,
out it seemed to him riches.
‘Before the war,” he continued, “I was a land
less farm laborer. For a year’s work I got my
food and thirty roubles. They also gave me my
outer clothes, but I myself must supply under
wear and shoes. Consequently I had no under
wear; what can one buy with thirty roubles?
For food they gave us cabbage soup without
meat; the meat they sold. Also black bread,
as much as we wanted. . . . Our collective
now is a regular international; we have Poles,
Ukrainians, Germans, Russians, even some
Americans, but we get on quite well together.”
The Crimean district having been introduced,
voung Crimean Tartar with smooth brown
?• w next took the floor. “Long ago,” he said,
the land of the Crimea belonged to the
al„t Tartar chiefs, but after the Russians con-
gr -pd Crimea, the Russian nobles bought it.
ciuel r peasants had no land at all. In the
°ict where I lived there was a vast estate
dis*1’1 O0O desiatins covering all the region. It
.of "A ged t° one landlord.. The richer peas-
,.ented land from him. But the poorer
^ere t®° small for-the landlord to
pented land in turn from
tjotl^Jclier P x £ One-third of the harvest
tU0 2 to J? also got- -u.’ and lf there was a mid-
since the^511^6- Now we have in
every soul \?®volution 6 desiatins of
’ Without rent to pay. That
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
is much land, but it is very dry and we need
much.”
^Several women had gradually joined the
group and appeared ready to speak. At last
a firm, decided-looking woman in' her middle
twenties, spoke energetically: “I am from
Minsk Government, Minsk County, Slepanski
village soviet.”
All laughed: “Now you have her full ad
dress and can write to her from America.’*
Nothing daunted, the woman went on: “I
want to say that the revolution made a great
difference to us women. We take part in
meetings. Some of us work in children’s nurs
eries. We are organizing one of these in our
village. There are many dark ones still but
since the men know we have equal rights, they
behave better.” Amused and embarrassed
grins went round the table.
"If a man ill-treats his wife, it is now easy
for her to get a divorce,” she ruthlessly con
tinued. ‘‘She goes to the president of the soviet
and tells him about it. He sends the husband
a paper, ‘If we don’t hear from you by such a,
date, you are divorced.’ And if they do hear
from him, all the same, he is divorced anyway.
The pale, sad Nijni man looks startled. No,
no, we don’t have that in our village.
chorus answers him: "Of course y Only
Maybe your women haven’t heard o • t does
it is not the president of the so R gistry of
it, but Zaks.” (Abbreviation for «eg
Vital Statistics.)
The Minsk woman speaks firmly: “With us
the president is the same as Zaks. We also
had cases, I won’t say many, where a man heat
his wife and she complained to the authorities
and they came round and warned him that if
he didn’t stop he would probably be divorced.
After that he behaved better.”
The Tambov man confirms this. “Formerly
if a man beat his wife, she could complain
nowhere.” The woman continues: “And if a
woman has a child at the breast, she is called
‘unfit for toil’ and that makes your taxes
smaller.”*
Then the Nijni man checks this flow of en
thusiasm. “Not always,” he says. “My wife
had a baby and I myself was sick. I asked for
exemption from taxes; and they told me to
get a doctor’s certificate.”
“Why not?” called a voice from the group.
The Nijni man turned on the speaker. “But
the dispensary was ninety versts away and
couldn’t everyone see the baby!”
“All the same,” conciliates the Tambov peas
ant, “they must have certificates to put the
stamps on.”
The Minsk woman, however, once, started,
will not so easily yield the floor. She contin
ues: “Formerly the peasants fell like flies
from the diseases; now they send you here to
the czar’s palace. . . . The old family was
terrible. For the daughter-in-law it was very
hard. They did not even consider her preg
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA 57j
nancy; they worked her to death always. Now
if a man drives his wife out, or if his parents
make her life a burden till she flees from the
house, she can sue for her share of the prop
erty. The soviet law is kinder to woman than
her own husband.”
She had said enough and reached her cli
max; now she leaned back and left the floor
to the Tambov peasant who began to grow elo
quent over the many, blessings of the Revolu
tion. “Formerly we never saw newspapers;
now we have all kinds, even women’s. The
agronom comes and gives lectures on farming.
Vre have a Reading Hut in our village and a
library in the township. We have a People’s
House with a theater and dramatic club. Not
long since we opened a radio and we can hear
Berlin. We have a telephone in the Soviet
House and can do business with the county
without going to town.
“The Old Ones,” he laughed cheerfully,
“thought the radio was the work of unclean
spirits. You should have seen them. We told
them Moscow was speaking, but they said No,
it is someone through the wall.’ Then they sa
it was the devil.”
“You, comrades, can do all things, ° wist-
black earth region,” said *he NiJ t dark of
fully. “But we live in the fa.rtbes the same
the woods with no Re^n®t? only dispensary
old school as before, an railroad- T.en.”
is ninety versts away at are
are rivers between and the bri n
But Tambov is not to be checked in his en
thusiasm. “We used to have no dispensary
even in the provincial city, but now we have
a Roentgen in the county and a laboratory for
venereal diseases in the provincial city.’’
The talk turned on religion. All agreed
that the young folks didn’t go to church any
more, but that often when they came to be
married or to have a child, the insistence of
the Old Ones secured a church marriage and a
christening. The Crimean Tartar said that
the young Mohammedans in his village hardly
ever indulged in the prayer five times daily
which is the duty of every good Mussulman.
“But on our two great yearly festivals, more
than half of them go, for the old folks make
demands and weep.”
A peasant from Smolensk explained the situ
ation thus: “More than half our people don't
recognize the priest. When the government
said, ‘We will not pay the priest any more;
let the collective of believers pay him if they
wish,’—then we began to consider if it was
worth the money. Yof must give him first
•fliree pounds of bread for every soul in your
family, then you must pay extra for weddings
1 nd christenings and funerals. Also to give
?nn+ieg booze is necessary—you needn’t smile,
^°mrades, you know as.well as I that one must
c? pooze to the priest if he is to be friendly.
S1V a funeral it costs two roubles for the
• st and one to his helper. So now many of
P1’1® v- ‘He is already cold, and it makes no
ll?fPprence to him.’ And they have a meeting
oof the relatives and bury him without the
jpriest. If it is a Young Communist the com-
irades have a procession. Only one-third of
<our wealthiest recognize the priest.”
For some time the chair at my right had
been taken by a brown-skinned oval-faced
woman, looking not unlike an Alaskan Indian.
I turned to her now to get her story. She was
a Yakutka, from the northeast corner of Si
beria; she had come three thousand miles by
boat and horse to reach even the railway. She
began her tale with the steamer, but later re
marked: “Well, from my own village it is
first ninety versts to the river. I didn’t count
that.”
The tall sad Nijni man looked startled, “And
I thought ninety versts from the railroad was
the farthest dark of the woods! This woman
forgets to count it!”
The Yakutka told how her people live in the
north, moving in the brief hot summer to a
little clearing where ten or twelve families
plant and reap their grain, and then moving
back for winter to their isolated huts. When
I expressed my wonder that they should choose
isolation in the winter, she informed me that
each must live near his own hay, and there is
no place with enough hay for more than one
family. Her nearest neighbors were two versts
away. I remarked that she could hardly have
any schools
But she surpised me. “Certainly we have
CO PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA
schools,” she said. “Ever since the Revolution.
Our north -was full of political prisoners, sent
there by the tsar. Many famous men were there
for many years. When the Revolution came,
they gathered all the intellectuals together and
organized schools in oui’ language. Our school
has a dormitory and dining-room and bath
house; everything you need for living. The
children stay there from Monday to Saturday.
At week-ends the parents drive over from thirty
versts around to get them, unless there is a
blizzard.”
The Yakutka told me proudly that they had
had “Soviet Power” without interruption since
the Revolution. Too far in the north to be
molested by the civil war under Kolchak, they
kept in touch with Moscow by the northern
telegraph and maintained their soviet organiza
tion and their schools without a break.
Another woman whom I also took to be a
Yakutka, though her face was rounder and
flatter, now insisted on speaking. She lived,
she said, still farther away than the other.
The crowd gasped; the Soviet Republic is a
land of incredible distances. Forty-two days on
/teanier, horses, and on foot over the moun
tains she had traveled to reach the railroad.
“I am not a Yakutka,” she said, “but a
TonSuslllt.a‘ further north beyond the
Arctic Circle. The Yakutkas live on herds
nnd props but we live only by hunting and fish-
jpg. °ur £uis go everywhere to all the world.
“Eh> £>ut Was Poor in the old days! Since
PEASANT LIFE IN SOVIET RUSSIA G1
I was ten years old I have hated bourgeois.
T?hey cheated us and despised us. We were
a.fraid of officials; even little officials made
t'hemselves big men with us. . . . But w’hen the
Soviet Power came to Yakutsk City, they sent
aa, delegate into the woods six hundred versts
tto call us together and ask what kind of
igovernment we wanted. We said: ‘Have what
government you wish in Yakutsk, if it does not
insult us and despise us.’ He said: ‘Choose,
therefore, your own delegate to come to Yakutsk
and tell us the needs of your people and sit
in our government.’ So we chose delegates in
the meeting. Afterwards I myself was once a
delegate.
“They have schools and Reading Huts in
Yakutsk City. Our children are sent there for
the winter to study. Our language now has
books which never were before the Revolu
tion. Also we get more for our furs; tea and
sugar and many things. Before they always
cheated us.”
“How do you know they don’t cheat you
now?” I asked her. “Do you know the prices
of your furs in America?” She disdained my
suggestion with pride.
“Certainly they make big profits from our
furs,” she said. “How else have they money
for our schools and reading huts? But if the
government wished to cheat us, would it give
us schools and books and cooperatives? For
when we read and write and manage our own
cooperatives, we can send our furs abrt^cl our
selves or know all we wish to know about the
sending. This also is our right, for we are
soviet citizens.”
Such was the composite voice of the peas
ants of the Soviet Republic, gathered from the
farthest north and farthest south into the
halls of the former czar, which now they own
as a sanatorium. Had there been more old
men and women there would have been more
complaints and less enthusiasm. For the sov
iet villages are by no means universally con
tented; there are many among the older genera
tions who dislike and distrust the new ways.
But the Peasants’ Sanatorium in Livadia, while
it has patients of all ages, has chiefly the age
of twenty-five to thirty-five. “These are those
who bore the brunt of civil war,” said the
chief doctor to me, “and whose lungs and
nerves need most repairing.” And those who
bore the brunt of war and revolution are the
ones who hope all things from the new land
they have created.
OTHER LITTLE BLUE BOOKS
(Order by Number)
Books on Soviet Russia
213 Debate on Soviet Form of Government: its
Application to Western Civilization. Scott
Nearing vs. Bertrand Russell
1447 How the Communists Rule Russia. Anna
Louise Strong
■.2112 Marriage and Morals in Soviet Russia. Anna
Louise Strong
12234 How Business Is Carried on in Soviet Russia.
Anna Louise Strong
L235 Workers’ Life in Soviet Russia. Anna Louise
Strong
Jokes and Anecdotes
1012 Best Negro Jokes
1013 Best Irish Jokes
1014 Best American Jokes
1082 Best Jewish Jokes
1033 Masterpieces of Russian Humor
1034 Masterpieces of Spanish Humor
1035 Masterpieces of Italian Humor
1036 Masterpieces of German Humor
972 Popular Joke Book
971 Book of Humorous Anecdotes
960 Masterpieces of American Wit
959 Masterpieces of American Humor
Humorous Books by Stephen Leacocn
1115 Book of Ridiculous Stories
1116 Book of Funny Dramatics
1117 Human Animal and Its Folly
1118 This Life As I See It
1119 Follies in Fiction
1120 Essays of Serious Spoofing
Famous Humor of Marie Twain
166 English As She Is Spoke
231 Eight Humorous Sketches
291 The Celebrated Jumping Frog
662 Amusing Answers to Correspondents
663 Journalism In Tennessee
if
64 LITTLE BLUE BOOKS
G68 Humorous Fables
930 An Idle Excursion
931 The Stolen White Elephant
932 A Curious Experience
Great Books of Humor
5G Dictionary of American Slang
18 Idle Thoughts of An Idle Fellow
GG9 Josh Billings’ Humorous Epigrams
670 Josh Billings’ Comical Lexicon
1093 Book of Amusing Puns
961 Humorous Verse
962 Comic Poems
1016 Book of Nonsense Verso
1025 Casey at the But etc.
7 38 Poor Richard’s Almanac
1068 . Best Fun from Pickwick Papers
Miscellaneous Popular Books
17 8 One of Cleopatra's Nights. Theophlle Gautier
556 Hints on Etiquette. Esther Floyd
1 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
876 Curiosities of Mathetmatics
821 How to Improve Your Vocabulary. Lloyd E.
Smith
6 Love, and Other Stories. Guy de Maupassant
1124 On the Bum: Sketches of Tramp Life. Dan
Hennessy
ORDER BY NUMBER: Your choice 5c each
(minimum order 20 books for $1). plus 1c per book
for carriage charges. Canadian and foreign price
7c each. Complete catalogue included with all
orders or free on request.
HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
Dept S-25. Girard, Kansas

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Peasant Life in Soviet Russia ALS 1927 230711 222938

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LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO.

PBINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA

THE PEASANTS THEMSELVES SPEAK OUT*

The collective voice of the peasant is by no

♦Lik-Point, i.e., point for Liquidation of Illiteracy,

Remembering, as I do, the general American

“But are not many poor through their own

Ing. The rest look annoyed. T,tiei>?u<.’f£f

taut is the difference in lessons. He?

Now they have drawing, and sculpture

"My two daughters last summer—one of them

“Also they learn government. They visit

_ .i <<<• i-int even before the It

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