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The Development of the Peasant Commune in Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Peter Toumanoff
Peter Toumanoff
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233
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Abstract

This article argues that the development of the peasant commune in Russia, with its periodic repartition of serf holdings, hierarchy of authority, and dependence on corvee as a form of obligation, was a consequence of enslavement of the Russian peasant. These features of the commune are seen as reducing the costs of both monitoring labor effort, and maintaining the productive capacity of the serf. The chronology of their development and their association with the more fertile land of European Russia and with private as opposed to state ownership provide evidence for the argument.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 1981 , pp. 179 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1981

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References

1 See, for example, Domar, Evsey, “The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom,” this JOURNAL, 30 (03 1970), 18–32;Google ScholarNorth, Douglass C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, “The Rise and Fall of the Manorial System: A Theoretical Model,” this JOURNAL, 31 (12 1971), 777–803;Google ScholarMcCloskey, Donald N., “English Open Fields as Behavior towards Risk,” Research in Economic History (Fall 1976);Google Scholar and Fenoaltea, Stefano, “Authority, Efficiency, and Agricultural Organization in Medieval England and Beyond,” this JOURNAL, 35 (12 1975), 693–718;Google Scholar and Ibid, “Risk, Transaction Costs, and the Organization of Medieval Agriculture,” Explorations in Economic History, 13 (1976), 129–51.

2 See Barzel, Yoram,“An Economic Analysis of Slavery,” Journal of Law and Economics, 20 (04 1977), 87–110;Google Scholar and Fogel, Robert William and Engerman, Stanley C., Time on the Cross, Vol. 1 (Boston, 1974), 232–46.Google Scholar

3 See North and Thomas, “Rise and Fall,” p. 789, and Fenoaltea, “Authority.” Fenoaltea also argues that corvee, or demesne agriculture, was practiced to preserve social order in times of anarchy.Google Scholar

4 Fenoaltea, “Authority,” pp 706–07.Google Scholar

5 Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1969), p. 228.Google Scholar

6 Liashchenko, Peter I., History of the National Economy of Russia, trans. Herman, L. M. (New York, 1949), p. 195;Google Scholar and Blum, Lord and Peasant, p. 247.Google Scholar

7 Blum, Lord and Peasant, p. 254; Liashchenko, History, pp. 196–97;Google ScholarRiasanovsky, Nicholas V., A History of Russia, 2nd ed. (New York, 1969), p. 205.Google Scholar

8 Semenov, Dmitri P., Statisticheskii Ocherk Kresrianskogo Zemlevladeniya i Zemlepol'zovaniya v Evropeiskoi Rossii [A statistical study of peasant land ownership and land usage in European Russia] (St. Petersburg, 1904), p. 62.Google Scholar

9 Koval'chenko, Ivan D., Russkoe Krepostnoe Krestian v Pervoi Polovine XIX Veka [Russian serfdom in the first half of the 19th century] (Moscow, 1967), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

10 See Robinson, Geroid T., Rural Russia under the Old Regime (New York, 1961), pp. 34–36;Google ScholarAlexandrov, Vadim A., Sel'skaya Obshchina v Rossii (XVII-nachalo XIX v.) [The village commune in Russia (17th to the beginning of the 19th century)] (Moscow, 1976), pp. 236–41;Google ScholarMiller, Alexandre, Essais sur l'historie des institutions agraires de la Russie centrale du XVIe au XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1926), pp. 202–20;Google ScholarEfimenko, Aleksandra, Issledovaniiya Narodnoi Zhizni [Investigation of the life of the people] (Moscow, 1884);Google ScholarSemenov, Statistical Study, pp. 36–38;Google Scholar and Confino, Michael, Donwines et seigneurs en Russie (Paris, 1963), p. 108.Google Scholar

11 See Koval'chenko, Russian Serfdom, pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

12 Data for the statistical investigation were collected from Koval'chenko, Russian Serfdom, and Semenov, Statistical Study. The author is happy to share details of the statistical work with interested readers.Google Scholar