Mutual Aid




Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution



Peter Kropotkin

1902



CHAPTER 7



MUTUAL AID AMONGST OURSELVES







Popular revolts at the beginning of the State-period. -- Mutual

Aid institutions of the present time. -- The village community;

its struggles for resisting its abolition by the State. -- Habits

derived from the village-community life, retained in our modern

villages. -- Switzerland, France, Germany, Russia.





    The mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and



is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human



race, that it has been maintained by mankind up to the present



time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history. It was chiefly



evolved during periods of peace and prosperity; but when even the



greatest calamities befell men -- when whole countries were laid



waste by wars, and whole populations were decimated by misery, or



groaned under the yoke of tyranny -- the same tendency continued



to live in the villages and among the poorer classes in the



towns; it still kept them together, and in the long run it



reacted even upon those ruling, fighting, and devastating



minorities which dismissed it as sentimental nonsense. And



whenever mankind had to work out a new social organization,



adapted to a new phasis of development, its constructive genius



always drew the elements and the inspiration for the new



departure from that same ever-living tendency. New economical and



social institutions, in so far as they were a creation of the



masses, new ethical systems, and new religions, all have



originated from the same source, and the ethical progress of our



race, viewed in its broad lines, appears as a gradual extension



of the mutual-aid principles from the tribe to always larger and



larger agglomerations, so as to finally embrace one day the whole



of mankind, without respect to its divers creeds, languages, and



races.



    After having passed through the savage tribe, and next



through the village community, the Europeans came to work out in



medieval times a new form of Organization, which had the



advantage of allowing great latitude for individual initiative,



while it largely responded at the same time to man's need of



mutual support. A federation of village communities, covered by a



network of guilds and fraternities, was called into existence in



the medieval cities. The immense results achieved under this new



form of union -- in well-being for all, in industries, art,



science, and commerce -- were discussed at some length in two



preceding chapters, and an attempt was also made to show why,



towards the end of the fifteenth century, the medieval republics



-- surrounded by domains of hostile feudal lords, unable to free



the peasants from servitude, and gradually corrupted by ideas of



Roman Caesarism -- were doomed to become a prey to the growing



military States.



    However, before submitting for three centuries to come, to



the all-absorbing authority of the State, the masses of the



people made a formidable attempt at reconstructing society on the



old basis of mutual aid and support. It is well known by this



time that the great movement of the reform was not a mere revolt



against the abuses of the Catholic Church. It had its



constructive ideal as well, and that ideal was life in free,



brotherly communities. Those of the early writings and sermons of



the period which found most response with the masses were imbued



with ideas of the economical and social brotherhood of mankind.



The "Twelve Articles" and similar professions of faith, which



were circulated among the German and Swiss peasants and artisans,



maintained not only every one's right to interpret the Bible



according to his own understanding, but also included the demand



of communal lands being restored to the village communities and



feudal servitudes being abolished, and they always alluded to the



"true" faith -- a faith of brotherhood. At the same time scores



of thousands of men and women joined the communist fraternities



of Moravia, giving them all their fortune and living in numerous



and prosperous settlements constructed upon the principles of



communism.¹ Only wholesale massacres by the thousand could put



a stop to this widely-spread popular movement, and it was by the



sword, the fire, and the rack that the young States secured their



first and decisive victory over the masses of the people.²



    For the next three centuries the States, both on the



Continent and in these islands, systematically weeded out all



institutions in which the mutual-aid tendency had formerly found



its expression. The village communities were bereft of their



folkmotes, their courts and independent administration; their



lands were confiscated. The guilds were spoliated of their



possessions and liberties, and placed under the control, the



fancy, and the bribery of the State's official. The cities were



divested of their sovereignty, and the very springs of their



inner life -- the folkmote, the elected justices and



administration, the sovereign parish and the sovereign guild --



were annihilated; the State's functionary took possession of



every link of what formerly was an organic whole. Under that



fatal policy and the wars it engendered, whole regions, once



populous and wealthy, were laid bare; rich cities became



insignificant boroughs; the very roads which connected them with



other cities became impracticable. Industry, art, and knowledge



fell into decay. Political education, science, and law were



rendered subservient to the idea of State centralization. It was



taught in the Universities and from the pulpit that the



institutions in which men formerly used to embody their needs of



mutual support could not be tolerated in a properly organized



State; that the State alone could represent the bonds of union



between its subjects; that federalism and "particularism" were



the enemies of progress, and the State was the only proper



initiator of further development. By the end of the last century



the kings on the Continent, the Parliament in these isles, and



the revolutionary Convention in France, although they were at war



with each other, agreed in asserting that no separate unions



between citizens must exist within the State; that hard labour



and death were the only suitable punishments to workers who dared



to enter into "coalitions." "No state within the State!" The



State alone, and the State's Church, must take care of matters of



general interest, while the subjects must represent loose



aggregations of individuals, connected by no particular bonds,



bound to appeal to the Government each time that they feel a



common need. Up to the middle of this century this was the theory



and practice in Europe. Even commercial and industrial societies



were looked at with suspicion. As to the workers, their unions



were treated as unlawful almost within our own lifetime in this



country and within the last twenty years on the Continent. The



whole system of our State education was such that up to the



present time, even in this country, a notable portion of society



would treat as a revolutionary measure the concession of such



rights as every one, freeman or serf, exercised five hundred



years ago in the village folkmote, the guild, the parish, and the



city.



    The absorption of all social functions by the State



necessarily favoured the development of an unbridled,



narrow-minded individualism. In proportion as the obligations



towards the State grew in numbers the citizens were evidently



relieved from their obligations towards each other. In the guild



-- and in medieval times every man belonged to some guild or



fraternity two "brothers" were bound to watch in turns a brother



who had fallen ill; it would be sufficient now to give one's



neighbour the address of the next paupers' hospital. In barbarian



society, to assist at a fight between two men, arisen from a



quarrel, and not to prevent it from taking a fatal issue, meant



to be oneself treated as a murderer; but under the theory of the



all-protecting State the bystander need not intrude: it is the



policeman's business to interfere, or not. And while in a savage



land, among the Hottentots, it would be scandalous to eat without



having loudly called out thrice whether there is not somebody



wanting to share the food, all that a respectable citizen has to



do now is to pay the poor tax and to let the starving starve. The



result is, that the theory which maintains that men can, and



must, seek their own happiness in a disregard of other people's



wants is now triumphant all round in law, in science, in



religion. It is the religion of the day, and to doubt of its



efficacy is to be a dangerous Utopian. Science loudly proclaims



that the struggle of each against all is the leading principle of



nature, and of human societies as well. To that struggle Biology



ascribes the progressive evolution of the animal world. History



takes the same line of argument; and political economists, in



their naive ignorance, trace all progress of modern industry and



machinery to the "wonderful" effects of the same principle. The



very religion of the pulpit is a religion of individualism,



slightly mitigated by more or less charitable relations to one's



neighbours, chiefly on Sundays. "Practical" men and theorists,



men of science and religious preachers, lawyers and politicians,



all agree upon one thing -- that individualism may be more or



less softened in its harshest effects by charity, but that it is



the only secure basis for the maintenance of society and its



ulterior progress.



    It seems, therefore, hopeless to look for mutual-aid



institutions and practices in modern society. What could remain



of them? And yet, as soon as we try to ascertain how the millions



of human beings live, and begin to study their everyday



relations, we are struck with the immense part which the



mutual-aid and mutual-support principles play even now-a-days in



human life. Although the destruction of mutual-aid institutions



has been going on in practice and theory, for full three or four



hundred years, hundreds of millions of men continue to live under



such institutions; they piously maintain them and endeavour to



reconstitute them where they have ceased to exist. In our mutual



relations every one of us has his moments of revolt against the



fashionable individualistic creed of the day, and actions in



which men are guided by their mutual aid inclinations constitute



so great a part of our daily intercourse that if a stop to such



actions could be put all further ethical progress would be



stopped at once. Human society itself could not be maintained for



even so much as the lifetime of one single generation. These



facts, mostly neglected by sociologists and yet of the first



importance for the life and further elevation of mankind, we are



now going to analyze, beginning with the standing institutions of



mutual support, and passing next to those acts of mutual aid



which have their origin in personal or social sympathies.







    When we cast a broad glance on the present constitution of



European society we are struck at once with the fact that,



although so much has been done to get rid of the village



community, this form of union continues to exist to the extent we



shall presently see, and that many attempts are now made either



to reconstitute it in some shape or another or to find some



substitute for it. The current theory as regards the village



community is, that in Western Europe it has died out by a natural



death, because the communal possession of the soil was found



inconsistent with the modern requirements of agriculture. But the



truth is that nowhere did the village community disappear of its



own accord; everywhere, on the contrary, it took the ruling



classes several centuries of persistent but not always successful



efforts to abolish it and to confiscate the communal lands.



    In France, the village communities began to be deprived of



their independence, and their lands began to be plundered, as



early as the sixteenth century. However, it was only in the next



century, when the mass of the peasants was brought, by exactions



and wars, to the state of subjection and misery which is vividly



depicted by all historians, that the plundering of their lands



became easy and attained scandalous proportions. "Every one has



taken of them according to his powers... imaginary debts have



been claimed, in order to seize upon their lands; "so we read in



an edict promulgated by Louis the Fourteenth in 1667.³ Of



course the State's remedy for such evils was to render the



communes still more subservient to the State, and to plunder them



itself. in fact, two years later all money revenue of the



communes was confiscated by the King. As to the appropriation of



communal lands, it grew worse and worse, and in the next century



the nobles and the clergy had already taken possession of immense



tracts of land -- one-half of the cultivated area, according to



certain estimates -- mostly to let it go out of culture.⁴ But



the peasants still maintained their communal institutions, and



until the year 1787 the village folkmotes, composed of all



householders, used to come together in the shadow of the



bell-tower or a tree, to allot and re-allot what they had



retained of their fields, to assess the taxes, and to elect their



executive, just as the Russian mir does at the present time. This



is what Babeau's researches have proved to demonstration.⁵



    The Government found, however, the folkmotes "too noisy," too



disobedient, and in 1787, elected councils, composed of a mayor



and three to six syndics, chosen from among the wealthier



peasants, were introduced instead. Two years later the



Revolutionary Assemblée Constituante, which was on this point at



one with the old régime, fully confirmed this law (on the 14th of



December, 1789), and the bourgeois du village had now their turn



for the plunder of communal lands, which continued all through



the Revolutionary period. Only on the 16th of August, 1792, the



Convention, under the pressure of the peasants' insurrections,



decided to return the enclosed lands to the communes;⁶ but it



ordered at the same time that they should be divided in equal



parts among the wealthier peasants only -- a measure which



provoked new insurrections and was abrogated next year, in 1793,



when the order came to divide the communal lands among. all



commoners, rich and poor alike, "active" and "inactive."



    These two laws, however, ran so much against the conceptions



of the peasants that they were not obeyed, and wherever the



peasants had retaken possession of part of their lands they kept



them undivided. But then came the long years of wars, and the



communal lands were simply confiscated by the State (in 1794) as



a mortgage for State loans, put up for sale, and plundered as



such; then returned again to the communes and confiscated again



(in 1813); and only in 1816 what remained of them, i.e. about



15,000,000 acres of the least productive land, was restored to



the village communities.⁷ Still this was not yet the end of



the troubles of the communes. Every new régime saw in the



communal lands a means for gratifying its supporters, and three



laws (the first in 1837 and the last under Napoleon the Third)



were passed to induce the village communities to divide their



estates. Three times these laws had to be repealed, in



consequence of the opposition they met with in the villages; but



something was snapped up each time, and Napoleon the Third, under



the pretext of encouraging perfected methods of agriculture,



granted large estates out of the communal lands to some of his



favourites.



    As to the autonomy of the village communities, what could be



retained of it after so many blows? The mayor and the syndics



were simply looked upon as unpaid functionaries of the State



machinery. Even now, under the Third Republic, very little can be



done in a village community without the huge State machinery, up



to the préfet and the ministries, being set in motion. It is



hardly credible, and yet it is true, that when, for instance, a



peasant intends to pay in money his share in the repair of a



communal road, instead of himself breaking the necessary amount



of stones, no fewer than twelve different functionaries of the



State must give their approval, and an aggregate of fifty-two



different acts must be performed by them, and exchanged between



them, before the peasant is permitted to pay that money to the



communal council. All the remainder bears the same character.⁸



    What took place in France took place everywhere in Western



and Middle Europe. Even the chief dates of the great assaults



upon the peasant lands are the same. For England the only



difference is that the spoliation was accomplished by separate



acts rather than by general sweeping measures -- with less haste



but more thoroughly than in France. The seizure of the communal



lands by the lords also began in the fifteenth century, after the



defeat of the peasant insurrection of 1380 -- as seen from



Rossus's Historia and from a statute of Henry the Seventh, in



which these seizures are spoken of under the heading of



"enormitees and myschefes as be hurtfull... to the common



wele."⁹ Later on the Great Inquest, under Henry the Eighth,



was begun, as is known, in order to put a stop to the enclosure



of communal lands, but it ended in a sanction of what had been



done.¹⁰ The communal lands continued to be preyed upon, and



the peasants were driven from the land. But it was especially



since the middle of the eighteenth century that, in England as



everywhere else, it became part of a systematic policy to simply



weed out all traces of communal ownership; and the wonder is not



that it has disappeared, but that it could be maintained, even in



England, so as to be "generally prevalent so late as the



grandfathers of this generation."¹¹ The very object of the



Enclosure Acts, as shown by Mr. Seebohm, was to remove this



system,¹² and it was so well removed by the nearly four



thousand Acts passed between 1760 and 1844 that only faint traces



of it remain now. The land of the village communities was taken



by the lords, and the appropriation was sanctioned by Parliament



in each separate case.



    In Germany, in Austria, in Belgium the village community was



also destroyed by the State. Instances of commoners themselves



dividing their lands were rare,¹³ while everywhere the States



coerced them to enforce the division, or simply favoured the



private appropriation of their lands. The last blow to communal



ownership in Middle Europe also dates from the middle of the



eighteenth century. In Austria sheer force was used by the



Government, in 1768, to compel the communes to divide their lands



-- a special commission being nominated two years later for that



purpose. In Prussia Frederick the Second, in several of his



ordinances (in 1752, 1763, 1765, and 1769), recommended to the



Justizcollegien to enforce the division. In Silesia a special



resolution was issued to serve that aim in 1771. The same took



place in Belgium, and, as the communes did not obey, a law was



issued in 1847 empowering the Government to buy communal meadows



in order to sell them in retail, and to make a forced sale of the



communal land when there was a would-be buyer for it.¹⁴



    In short, to speak of the natural death of the village



communities in virtue of economical laws is as grim a joke as to



speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered on a



battlefield. The fact was simply this: The village communities



had lived for over a thousand years; and where and when the



peasants were not ruined by wars and exactions they steadily



improved their methods of culture. But as the value of land was



increasing, in consequence of the growth of industries, and the



nobility had acquired, under the State organization, a power



which it never had had under the feudal system, it took



possession of the best parts of the communal lands, and did its



best to destroy the communal institutions.







    However, the village-community institutions so well respond



to the needs and conceptions of the tillers of the soil that, in



spite of all, Europe is up to this date covered with living



survivals of the village communities, and European country life



is permeated with customs and habits dating from the community



period. Even in England, notwithstanding all the drastic measures



taken against the old order of things, it prevailed as late as



the beginning of the nineteenth century. Mr. Gomme -- one of the



very few English scholars who have paid attention to the subject



-- shows in his work that many traces of the communal possession



of the soil are found in Scotland, "runrig" tenancy having been



maintained in Forfarshire up to 1813, while in certain villages



of Inverness the custom was, up to 1801, to plough the land for



the whole community, without leaving any boundaries, and to allot



it after the ploughing was done. In Kilmorie the allotment and



re-allotment of the fields was in full vigour "till the last



twenty-five years," and the Crofters' Commission found it still



in vigour in certain islands.¹⁵ In Ireland the system



prevailed up to the great famine; and as to England, Marshall's



works, which passed unnoticed until Nasse and Sir Henry Maine



drew attention to them, leave no doubt as to the



village-community system having been widely spread, in nearly all



English counties, at the beginning of the nineteenth



century.¹⁶ No more than twenty years ago Sir Henry Maine was



"greatly surprised at the number of instances of abnormal



property rights, necessarily implying the former existence of



collective ownership and joint cultivation," which a



comparatively brief inquiry brought under his notice.¹⁷ And,



communal institutions having persisted so late as that, a great



number of mutual-aid habits and customs would undoubtedly be



discovered in English villages if the writers of this country



only paid attention to village life.¹⁸



    As to the Continent, we find the communal institutions fully



alive in many parts of France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the



Scandinavian lands, and Spain, to say nothing of Eastern Europe;



the village life in these countries is permeated with communal



habits and customs; and almost every year the Continental



literature is enriched by serious works dealing with this and



connected subjects. I must, therefore, limit my illustrations to



the most typical instances. Switzerland is undoubtedly one of



them. Not only the five republics of Uri, Schwytz, Appenzell,



Glarus, and Unterwalden hold their lands as undivided estates,



and are governed by their popular folkmotes, but in all other



cantons too the village communities remain in possession of a



wide self-government, and own large parts of the Federal



territory.¹⁹ Two-thirds of all the Alpine meadows and



two-thirds of all the forests of Switzerland are until now



communal land; and a considerable number of fields, orchards,



vineyards, peat bogs, quarries, and so on, are owned in common.



In the Vaud, where all the householders continue to take part in



the deliberations of their elected communal councils, the



communal spirit is especially alive. Towards the end of the



winter all the young men of each village go to stay a few days in



the woods, to fell timber and to bring it down the steep slopes



tobogganing way, the timber and the fuel wood being divided among



all households or sold for their benefit. These excursions are



real fêtes of manly labour. On the banks of Lake Leman part of



the work required to keep up the terraces of the vineyards is



still done in common; and in the spring, when the thermometer



threatens to fall below zero before sunrise, the watchman wakes



up all householders, who light fires of straw and dung and



protect their vine-trees from the frost by an artificial cloud.



In nearly all cantons the village communities possess so-called.



Bürgernutzen -- that is, they hold in common a number of cows, in



order to supply each family with butter; or they keep communal



fields or vineyards, of which the produce is divided between the



burghers,. or they rent their land for the benefit of the



community.²⁰



    It may be taken as a rule that where the communes have



retained a wide sphere of functions, so as to be living parts of



the national organism, and where they have not been reduced to



sheer misery, they never fail to take good care of their lands.



Accordingly the communal estates in Switzerland strikingly



contrast with the miserable state of "commons" in this country.



The communal forests in the Vaud and the Valais are admirably



managed, in conformity with the rules of modern forestry.



Elsewhere the "strips" of communal fields, which change owners



under the system of re-allotment, are very well manured,



especially as there is no lack of meadows and cattle. The high



level meadows are well kept as a rule, and the rural roads are



excellent.²¹ And when we admire the Swiss châlet, the mountain



road, the peasants' cattle, the terraces of vineyards, or the



school-house in Switzer land, we must keep in mind that without



the timber for the châlet being taken from the communal woods and



the stone from the communal quarries, without the cows being kept



on the communal meadows, and the roads being made and the



school-houses built by communal work, there would be little to



admire.



    It hardly need be said that a great number of mutual-aid



habits and customs continue to persist in the Swiss villages. The



evening gatherings for shelling walnuts, which take place in



turns in each household; the evening parties for sewing the dowry



of the girl who is going to marry; the calling of "aids" for



building the houses and taking in the crops, as well as for all



sorts of work which may be required by one of the commoners; the



custom of exchanging children from one canton to the other, in



order to make them learn two languages, French and German; and so



on -- all these are quite habitual;²² while, on the other



side, divers modern requirements are met in the same spirit. Thus



in Glarus most of the Alpine meadows have been sold during a time



of calamity; but the communes still continue to buy field land,



and after the newly-bought fields have been left in the



possession of separate commoners for ten, twenty, or thirty



years, as the case might be, they return to the common stock,



which is re-allotted according to the needs of all. A great



number of small associations are formed to produce some of the



necessaries for life -- bread, cheese, and wine -- by common



work, be it only on a limited scale; and agricultural



co-operation altogether spreads in Switzerland with the greatest



ease. Associations formed between ten to thirty peasants, who buy



meadows and fields in common, and cultivate them as co-owners,



are of common occurrence; while dairy associations for the sale



of milk, butter, and cheese are organized everywhere. In fact,



Switzerland was the birthplace of that form of co-operation. It



offers, moreover, an immense field for the study of all sorts of



small and large societies, formed for the satisfaction of all



sorts of modern wants. In certain parts of Switzerland one finds



in almost every village a number of associations -- for



protection from fire, for boating, for maintaining the quays on



the shores of a lake, for the supply of water, and so on; and the



country is covered with societies of archers, sharpshooters,



topographers, footpath explorers, and the like, originated from



modern militarism.



    Switzerland is, however, by no means an exception in Europe,



because the same institutions and habits are found in the



villages of France, of Italy, of Germany, of Denmark, and so on.



We have just seen what has been done by the rulers of France in



order to destroy the village community and to get hold of its



lands; but notwithstanding all that one-tenth part of the whole



territory available for culture, i.e. 13,500,000 acres, including



one-half of all the natural meadows and nearly a fifth part of



all the forests of the country, remain in communal possession.



The woods supply the communers with fuel, and the timber wood is



cut, mostly by communal work, with all desirable regularity; the



grazing lands are free for the commoners' cattle; and what



remains of communal fields is allotted and re-allotted in certain



parts Ardennes -- in the usual of France -- namely, in the



way.²³



    These additional sources of supply, which aid the poorer



peasants to pass through a year of bad crops without parting with



their small plots of land and without running into irredeemable



debts, have certainly their importance for both the agricultural



labourers and the nearly three millions of small peasant



proprietors. It is even doubtful whether small peasant



proprietorship could be maintained without these additional



resources. But the ethical importance of the communal



possessions, small as they are, is still greater than their



economical value. They maintain in village life a nucleus of



customs and habits of mutual aid which undoubtedly acts as a



mighty check upon the development of reckless individualism and



greediness, which small land-ownership is only too prone to



develop. Mutual aid in all possible circumstances of village life



is part of the routine life in all parts of the country.



Everywhere we meet, under different names, with the charroi, i.e.



the free aid of the neighbours for taking in a crop, for vintage,



or for building a house; everywhere we find the same evening



gatherings as have just been mentioned in Switzerland; and



everywhere the commoners associate for all sorts of work. Such



habits are mentioned by nearly all those who have written upon



French village life. But it will perhaps be better to give in



this place some abstracts from letters which I have just received



from a friend of mine whom I have asked to communicate to me his



observations on this subject. They come from an aged man who for



years has been the mayor of his commune in South France (in



Ariège); the facts he mentions are known to him from long years



of personal observation, and they have the advantage of coming



from one neighbourhood instead of being skimmed from a large



area. Some of them may seem trifling, but as a whole they depict



quite a little world of village life.



    "In several communes in our neighbourhood," my friend writes,



"the old custom of l'emprount is in vigour. When many hands are



required in a métairie for rapidly making some work -- dig out



potatoes or mow the grass -- the youth of the neighbourhood is



convoked; young men and girls come in numbers, make it gaily and



for nothing. and in the evening, after a gay meal, they dance.



    "In the same communes, when a girl is going to marry, the



girls of the neighbourhood come to aid in sewing the dowry. In



several communes the women still continue to spin a good deal.



When the winding off has to be done in a family it is done in one



evening -- all friends being convoked for that work. In many



communes of the Ariège and other parts of the south-west the



shelling of the Indian corn-sheaves is also done by all the



neighbours. They are treated with chestnuts and wine, and the



young people dance after the work has been done. The same custom



is practised for making nut oil and crushing hemp. In the commune



of L. the same is done for bringing in the corn crops. These days



of hard work become fête days, as the owner stakes his honour on



serving a good meal. No remuneration is given; all do it for each



other.²⁴



    "In the commune of S. the common grazing-land is every year



increased, so that nearly the whole of the land of the commune is



now kept in common. The shepherds are elected by all owners of



the cattle, including women. The bulls are communal.



    "In the commune of M. the forty to fifty small sheep flocks



of the commoners are brought together and divided into three or



four flocks before being sent to the higher meadows. Each owner



goes for a week to serve as shepherd.



    "In the hamlet of C. a threshing machine has been bought in



common by several households; the fifteen to twenty persons



required to serve the machine being supplied by all the families.



Three other threshing machines have been bought and are rented



out by their owners, but the work is performed by outside



helpers, invited in the usual way.



    "In our commune of R. we had to raise the wall of the



cemetery. Half of the money which was required for buying lime



and for the wages of the skilled workers was supplied by the



county council, and the other half by subscription. As to the



work of carrying sand and water, making mortar, and serving the



masons, it was done entirely by volunteers [just as in the Kabyle



djemmâa]. The rural roads were repaired in the same way, by



volunteer days of work given by the commoners. Other communes



have built in the same way their fountains. The wine-press and



other smaller appliances are frequently kept by the commune."



    Two residents of the same neighbourhood, questioned by my



friend, add the following: --



    "At O. a few years ago there was no mill. The commune has



built one, levying a tax upon the commoners. As to the miller,



they decided, in order to avoid frauds and partiality, that he



should be paid two francs for each bread-eater, and the corn be



ground free.



    "At St. G. few peasants are insured against fire. When a



conflagration has taken place -- so it was lately -- all give



something to the family which has suffered from it -- a chaldron,



a bed-cloth, a chair, and so on -- and a modest household is thus



reconstituted. All the neighbours aid to build the house, and in



the meantime the family is lodged free by the neighbours."



    Such habits of mutual support -- of which many more examples



could be given -- undoubtedly account for the easiness with which



the French peasants associate for using, in turn, the plough with



its team of horses, the wine-press, and the threshing machine,



when they are kept in the village by one of them only, as well as



for the performance of all sorts of rural work in common. Canals



were maintained, forests were cleared, trees were planted, and



marshes were drained by the village communities from time



immemorial; and the same continues still. Quite lately, in La



Borne of Lozère barren hills were turned into rich gardens by



communal work. "The soil was brought on men's backs; terraces



were made and planted with chestnut trees, peach trees, and



orchards, and water was brought for irrigation in canals two or



three miles long." Just now they have dug a new canal, eleven



miles in length.²⁵



    To the same spirit is also due the remarkable success lately



obtained by the syndicats agricoles, or peasants' and farmers'



associations. It was not until 1884 that associations of more



than nineteen persons were permitted in France, and I need not



say that when this "dangerous experiment" was ventured upon -- so



it was styled in the Chambers -- all due "precautions" which



functionaries can invent were taken. Notwithstanding all that,



France begins to be covered with syndicates. At the outset they



were only formed for buying manures and seeds, falsification



having attained colossal proportions in these two branches;²⁶



but gradually they extended their functions in various



directions, including the sale of agricultural produce and



permanent improvements of the land. In South France the ravages



of the phylloxera have called into existence a great number of



wine-growers' associations. Ten to thirty growers form a



syndicate, buy a steam-engine for pumping water, and make the



necessary arrangements for inundating their vineyards in



turn.²⁷ New associations for protecting the land from



inundations, for irrigation purposes, and for maintaining canals



are continually formed, and the unanimity of all peasants of a



neighbourhood, which is required by law, is no obstacle.



Elsewhere we have the fruitières, or dairy associations, in some



of which all butter and cheese is divided in equal parts,



irrespective of the yield of each cow. In the Ariège we find an



association of eight separate communes for the common culture of



their lands, which they have put together; syndicates for free



medical aid have been formed in 172 communes out of 337 in the



same department; associations of consumers arise in connection



with the syndicates; and so on.²⁸ "Quite a revolution is going



on in our villages," Alfred Baudrillart writes, "through these



associations, which take in each region their own special



characters.



    "Very much the same must be said of Germany. Wherever the



peasants could resist the plunder of their lands, they have



retained them in communal ownership, which largely prevails in



Württemberg, Baden, Hohenzollern, and in the Hessian province of



Starkenberg.²⁹ The communal forests are kept, as a rule, in an



excellent state, and in thousands of communes timber and fuel



wood are divided every year among all inhabitants; even the old



custom of the Lesholztag is widely spread: at the ringing of the



village bell all go to the forest to take as much fuel wood as



they can carry.³⁰ In Westphalia one finds communes in which



all the land is cultivated as one common estate, in accordance



with all requirements of modern agronomy. As to the old communal



customs and habits, they are in vigour in most parts of Germany.



The calling in of aids, which are real fêtes of labour, is known



to be quite habitual in Westphalia, Hesse, and Nassau. In



well-timbered regions the timber for a new house is usually taken



from the communal forest, and all the neighbours join in building



the house. Even in the suburbs of Frankfort it is a regular



custom among the gardeners that in case of one of them being ill



all come on Sunday to cultivate his garden.³¹



    In Germany, as in France, as soon as the rulers of the people



repealed their laws against the peasant associations -- that was



only in 1884-1888 -- these unions began to develop with a



wonderful rapidity, notwithstanding all legal obstacles which



were put in their way³² "It is a fact," Buchenberger says,



"that in thousands of village communities, in which no sort of



chemical manure or rational fodder was ever known, both have



become of everyday use, to a quite unforeseen extent, owing to



these associations" (vol. ii. p. 507). All sorts of labour-saving



implements and agricultural machinery, and better breeds of



cattle, are bought through the associations, and various



arrangements for improving the quality of the produce begin to be



introduced. Unions for the sale of agricultural produce are also



formed, as well as for permanent improvements of the land.³³



    From the point of view of social economics all these efforts



of the peasants certainly are of little importance. They cannot



substantially, and still less permanently, alleviate the misery



to which the tillers of the soil are doomed all over Europe. But



from the ethical point of view, which we are now considering,



their importance cannot be overrated. They prove that even under



the system of reckless individualism which now prevails the



agricultural masses piously maintain their mutual-support



inheritance; and as soon as the States relax the iron laws by



means of which they have broken all bonds between men, these



bonds are at once reconstituted, notwithstanding the



difficulties, political, economical, and social, which are many,



and in such forms as best answer to the modern requirements of



production. They indicate in which direction and in which form



further progress must be expected.



    I might easily multiply such illustrations, taking them from



Italy, Spain, Denmark, and so on, and pointing out some



interesting features which are proper to each of these



countries.³⁴ The Slavonian populations of Austria and the



Balkan peninsula, among whom the "compound family," or "undivided



household," is found in existence, ought also to be



mentioned.³⁵ But I hasten to pass on to Russia, where the same



mutual-support tendency takes certain new and unforeseen forms.



Moreover, in dealing with the village community in Russia we have



the advantage: of possessing an immense mass of materials,



collected during the colossal house-to-house inquest which was



lately made by several zemstvos (county councils), and which



embraces a population of nearly 20,000,000 peasants in different



parts of the country.³⁶



    Two important conclusions may be drawn from the bulk of



evidence collected by the Russian inquests. In Middle Russia,



where fully one-third of the peasants have been brought to utter



ruin (by heavy taxation, small allotments of unproductive land,



rack rents, and very severe tax-collecting after total failures



of crops), there was, during the first five-and-twenty years



after the emancipation of the serfs, a decided tendency towards



the constitution of individual property in land within the



village communities. Many impoverished "horseless" peasants



abandoned their allotments, and this land often became the



property of those richer peasants, who borrow additional incomes



from trade, or of outside traders, who buy land chiefly for



exacting rack rents from the peasants. It must also be added that



a flaw in the land redemption law of 1861 offered great



facilities for buying peasants' lands at a very small



expense,³⁷ and that the State officials mostly used their



weighty influence in favour of individual as against communal



ownership. However, for the last twenty years a strong wind of



opposition to the individual appropriation of the land blows



again through the Middle Russian villages, and strenuous efforts



are being made by the bulk of those peasants who stand between



the rich and the very poor to uphold the village community. As to



the fertile steppes of the South, which are now the most populous



and the richest part of European Russia, they were mostly



colonized, during the present century, under the system of



individual ownership or occupation, sanctioned in that form by



the State. But since improved methods of agriculture with the aid



of machinery have been introduced in the region, the peasant



owners have gradually begun themselves to transform their



individual ownership into communal possession, and one finds now,



in that granary of Russia, a very great number of spontaneously



formed village communities of recent origin.³⁸



    The Crimea and the part of the mainland which lies to the



north of it (the province of Taurida), for which we have detailed



data, offer an excellent illustration of that movement. This



territory began to be colonized, after its annexation in 1783, by



Great, Little, and White Russians -- Cossacks, freemen, and



runaway serfs -- who came individually or in small groups from



all corners of Russia. They took first to cattle-breeding, and



when they began later on to till the soil, each one tilled as



much as he could afford to. But when -- immigration continuing,



and perfected ploughs being introduced -- land stood in great



demand, bitter disputes arose among the settlers. They lasted for



years, until these men, previously tied by no mutual bonds,



gradually came to the idea that an end must be put to disputes by



introducing village-community ownership. They passed decisions to



the effect that the land which they owned individually should



henceforward be their common property, and they began to allot



and to re-allot it in accordance with the usual village-community



rules. The movement gradually took a great extension, and on a



small territory, the Taurida statisticians found 161 villages in



which communal ownership had been introduced by the peasant



proprietors themselves, chiefly in the years 1855-1885, in lieu



of individual ownership. Quite a variety of village-community



types has been freely worked out in this way by the



settlers.³⁹ What adds to the interest of this transformation



is that it took place, not only among the Great Russians, who are



used to village-community life, but also among Little Russians,



who have long since forgotten it under Polish rule, among Greeks



and Bulgarians, and even among Germans, who have long since



worked out in their prosperous and half-industrial Volga colonies



their own type of village community.⁴⁰ It is evident that the



Mussulman Tartars of Taurida hold their land under the Mussulman



customary law, which is limited personal occupation; but even



with them the European village community has been introduced in a



few cases. As to other nationalities in Taurida, individual



ownership has been abolished in six Esthonian, two Greek, two



Bulgarian, one Czech, and one German village. This movement is



characteristic for the whole of the fertile steppe region of the



south. But separate instances of it are also found in Little



Russia. Thus in a number of villages of the province of Chernigov



the peasants were formerly individual owners of their plots; they



had separate legal documents for their plots and used to rent and



to sell their land at will. But in the fifties of the nineteenth



century a movement began among them in favour of communal



possession, the chief argument being the growing number of pauper



families. The initiative of the reform was taken in one village,



and the others followed suit, the last case on record dating from



1882. Of course there were struggles between the poor, who



usually claim for communal possession, and the rich, who usually



prefer individual ownership; and the struggles often lasted for



years. In certain places the unanimity required then by the law



being impossible to obtain, the village divided into two



villages, one under individual ownership and the other under



communal possession; and so they remained until the two coalesced



into one community, or else they remained divided still As to



Middle Russia, its a fact that in many villages which were



drifting towards individual ownership there began since 1880 a



mass movement in favour of re-establishing the village community.



Even peasant proprietors who had lived for years under the



individualist system returned en masse to the communal



institutions. Thus, there is a considerable number of ex-serfs



who have received one-fourth part only of the regulation



allotments, but they have received them free of redemption and in



individual ownership. There was in 1890 a wide-spread movement



among them (in Kursk, Ryazan, Tambov, Orel, etc.) towards putting



their allotments together and introducing the village community.



The "free agriculturists" (volnyie khlebopashtsy), who were



liberated from serfdom under the law of 1803, and had bought



their allotments -- each family separately -- are now nearly all



under the village-community system, which they have introduced



themselves. All these movements are of recent origin, and



non-Russians too join them. Thus the Bulgares in the district of



Tiraspol, after having remained for sixty years under the



personal-property system, introduced the village community in the



years 1876-1882. The German Mennonites of Berdyansk fought in



1890 for introducing the village community, and the small peasant



proprietors (Kleinwirthschaftliche) among the German Baptists



were agitating in their villages in the same direction. One



instance more: In the province of Samara the Russian government



created in the forties, by way of experiment, 1O3 villages on the



system of individual ownership. Each household received a



splendid property of 105 acres. In 1890, out of the 103 villages



the peasants in 72 had already notified the desire of introducing



the village community. I take all these facts from the excellent



work of V.V., who simply gives, in a classified form, the facts



recorded in the above-mentioned house-to-house inquest.



    This movement in favour of communal possession runs badly



against the current economical theories, according to which



intensive culture is incompatible with the village community. But



the most charitable thing that can be said of these theories is



that they have never been submitted to the test of experiment:



they belong to the domain of political metaphysics. The facts



which we have before us show, on the contrary, that wherever the



Russian peasants, owing to a concurrence of favourable



circumstances, are less miserable than they are on the average,



and wherever they find men of knowledge and initiative among



their neighbours, the village community becomes the very means



for introducing various improvements in agriculture and village



life altogether. Here, as elsewhere, mutual aid is a better



leader to progress than the war of each against all, as may be



seen from the following facts.



    Under Nicholas the First's rule many Crown officials and



serf-owners used to compel the peasants to introduce the communal



culture of small plots of the village lands, in order to refill



the communal storehouses after loans of grain had been granted to



the poorest commoners. Such cultures, connected in the peasants'



minds with the worst reminiscences of serfdom, were abandoned as



soon as serfdom was abolished  but now the peasants begin to



reintroduce them on their own account. In one district



(Ostrogozhsk, in Kursk) the initiative of one person was



sufficient to call them to life in four-fifths of all the



villages. The same is met with in several other localities. On a



given day the commoners come out, the richer ones with a plough



or a cart and the poorer ones single-handed, and no attempt is



made to discriminate one's share in the work. The crop is



afterwards used for loans to the poorer commoners, mostly free



grants, or for the orphans and widows, or for the village church,



or for the school, or for repaying a communal debt.⁴¹



    That all sorts of work which enters, so to say, in the



routine of village life (repair of roads and bridges, dams,



drainage, supply of water for irrigation, cutting of wood,



planting of trees, etc.) are made by whole communes, and that



land is rented and meadows are mown by whole communes -- the work



being accomplished by old and young, men and women, in the way



described by Tolstoi -- is only what one may expect from people



living under the village-community system.⁴² They are of



everyday occurrence all over the country. But the village



community is also by no means averse to modern agricultural



improvements, when it can stand the expense, and when knowledge,



hitherto kept for the rich only, finds its way into the peasant's



house.



    It has just been said that perfected ploughs rapidly spread



in South Russia, and in many cases the village communities were



instrumental in spreading their use. A plough was bought by the



community, experimented upon on a portion of the communal land,



and the necessary improvements were indicated to the makers, whom



the communes often aided in starting the manufacture of cheap



ploughs as a village industry. In the district of Moscow, where



1,560 ploughs were lately bought by the peasants during five



years, the impulse came from those communes which rented lands as



a body for the special purpose of improved culture.



    In the north-east (Vyatka) small associations of peasants,



who travel with their winnowing machines (manufactured as a



village industry in one of the iron districts), have spread the



use of such machines in the neighbouring governments. The very



wide spread of threshing machines in Samara, Saratov, and Kherson



is due to the peasant associations, which can afford to buy a



costly engine, while the individual peasant cannot. And while we



read in nearly all economical treatises that the village



community was doomed to disappear when the three-fields system



had to be substituted by the rotation of crops system, we see in



Russia many village communities taking the initiative of



introducing the rotation of crops. Before accepting it the



peasants usually set apart a portion of the communal fields for



an experiment in artificial meadows, and the commune buys the



seeds.⁴³ If the experiment proves successful they find no



difficulty whatever in re-dividing their fields, so as to suit



the five or six fields system.



    This system is now in use in hundreds of villages of Moscow,



Tver, Smolensk, Vyatka, and Pskov.⁴⁴ And where land can be



spared the communities give also a portion of their domain to



allotments for fruit-growing. Finally, the sudden extension



lately taken in Russia by the little model farms, orchards,



kitchen gardens, and silkworm-culture grounds -- which are



started at the village school-houses, under the conduct of the



school-master, or of a village volunteer -- is also due to the



support they found with the village communities.



    Moreover, such permanent improvements as drainage and



irrigation are of frequent occurrence. For instance, in three



districts of the province of Moscow -- industrial to a great



extent -- drainage works have been accomplished within the last



ten years on a large scale in no less than 180 to 200 different



villages -- the commoners working themselves with the spade. At



another extremity of Russia, in the dry Steppes of Novouzen, over



a thousand dams for ponds were built and several hundreds of deep



wells were sunk by the communes; while in a wealthy German colony



of the south-east the commoners worked, men and women alike, for



five weeks in succession, to erect a dam, two miles long, for



irrigation purposes. What could isolated men do in that struggle



against the dry climate? What could they obtain through



individual effort when South Russia was struck with the marmot



plague, and all people living on the land, rich and poor,



commoners and individualists, had to work with their hands in



order to conjure the plague? To call in the policeman would have



been of no use; to associate was the only possible remedy.







    And now, after having said so much about mutual aid and



support which are practised by the tillers of the soil in



"civilized" countries, I see that I might fill an octavo volume



with illustrations taken from the life of the hundreds of



millions of men who also live under the tutorship of more or less



centralized States, but are out of touch with modern civilization



and modern ideas. I might describe the inner life of a Turkish



village and its network of admirable mutual-aid customs and



habits. On turning over my leaflets covered with illustrations



from peasant life in Caucasia, I come across touching facts of



mutual support. I trace the same customs in the Arab djemmâa and



the Afghan purra, in the villages of Persia, India, and Java, in



the undivided family of the Chinese, in the encampments of the



semi-nomads of Central Asia and the nomads of the far North. On



consulting notes taken at random in the literature of Africa, I



find them replete with similar facts -- of aids convoked to take



in the crops, of houses built by all inhabitants of the village



-- sometimes to repair the havoc done by civilized filibusters --



of people aiding each other in case of accident, protecting the



traveller, and so on. And when I peruse such works as Post's



compendium of African customary law I understand why,



notwithstanding all tyranny, oppression, robberies and raids,



tribal wars, glutton kings, deceiving witches and priests,



slave-hunters, and the like, these populations have not gone



astray in the woods; why they have maintained a certain



civilization, and have remained men, instead of dropping to the



level of straggling families of decaying orang-outans. The fact



is, that the slave-hunters, the ivory robbers, the fighting



kings, the Matabele and the Madagascar "heroes" pass away,



leaving their traces marked with blood and fire; but the nucleus



of mutual-aid institutions, habits, and customs, grown up in the



tribe and the village community, remains; and it keeps men united



in societies, open to the progress of civilization, and ready to



receive it when the day comes that they shall receive



civilization instead of bullets.



    The same applies to our civilized world. The natural and



social calamities pass away. Whole populations are periodically



reduced to misery or starvation; the very springs of life are



crushed out of millions of men, reduced to city pauperism; the



understanding and the feelings of the millions are vitiated by



teachings worked out in the interest of the few. All this is



certainly a part of our existence. But the nucleus of



mutual-support institutions, habits, and customs remains alive



with the millions; it keeps them together; and they prefer to



cling to their customs, beliefs, and traditions rather than to



accept the teachings of a war of each against all, which are



offered to them under the title of science, but are no science at



all.









Notes

¹ A bulky literature, dealing with this formerly much neglected

subject, is now growing in Germany. Keller's works, Ein Apostel

der Wiedertäufer and Geschichte der Wiedertäufer, Cornelius's

Geschichte des münsterischen Aufruhrs, and Janssen's Geschichte

des deutschen Volkes may be named as the leading sources. The

first attempt at familiarizing English readers with the results

of the wide researches made in Germany in this direction has been

made in an excellent little work by Richard Heath -- "Anabaptism

from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Münster, 1521-1536,"

London, 1895 (Baptist Manuals, vol. i.) -- where the leading

features of the movement are well indicated, and full

bibliographical information is given. Also K. Kautsky's Communism

in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, London, 1897.



² Few of our contemporaries realize both the extent of this

movement and the means by which it was suppressed. But those who

wrote immediately after the great peasant war estimated at from

100,000 to 150,000 men the number of peasants slaughtered after

their defeat in Germany. See Zimmermann's Allgemeine Geschichte

des grossen Bauernkrieges. For the measures taken to suppress the

movement in the Netherlands see Richard Heath's Anabaptism.



³ "Chacun s'en est accommodé selon sa bienséance... on les a

partagés.. pour dépouiller les communes, on s'est servi de dettes

simulées" (Edict of Louis the Fourteenth, of 1667, quoted by

several authors. Eight years before that date the communes had

been taken under State management).



⁴ "On a great landlord's estate, even if he has millions of

revenue, you are sure to find the land uncultivated" (Arthur

Young). "One-fourth part of the soil went out of culture;" "for

the last hundred years the land has returned to a savage state;"

"the formerly flourishing Sologne is now a big marsh;" and so on

(Théron de Montaugé, quoted by Taine in Origines de la France

Contemporaine, tome i. p. 441).



⁵ A. Babeau, Le Village sous l'Ancien Régime, 3e édition. Paris,

1892.



⁶ In Eastern France the law only confirmed what the peasants had

already done themselves; in other parts of France it usually

remained a dead letter.



⁷ After the triumph of the middle-class reaction the communal

lands were declared (August 24, 1794) the States domains, and,

together with the lands confiscated from the nobility, were put

up for sale, and pilfered by the bandes noires of the small

bourgeoisie. True that a stop to this pilfering was put next year

(law of 2 Prairial, An V), and the preceding law was abrogated;

but then the village Communities were simply abolished, and

cantonal councils were introduced instead. Only seven years later

(9 Prairial, An XII), i.e. in 1801, the village communities were

reintroduced, but not until after having been deprived of all

their rights, the mayor and syndics being nominated by the

Government in the 36,000 communes of France! This system was

maintained till after the revolution of 1830, when elected

communal councils were reintroduced under the law of 1787. As to

the communal lands, they were again seized upon by the State in

1813, plundered as such, and only partly restored to the communes

in 1816. See the classical collection of French laws, by Dalloz,

Répertoire de Jurisprudence; also the works of Doniol, Dareste,

Bonnemère, Babeau, and many others.



⁸ This procedure is so absurd that one would not believe it

possible if the fifty-two different acts were not enumerated in

full by a quite authoritative writer in the Journal des

Economistes (1893, April, p. 94), and several similar examples

were not given by the same author.



⁹ Dr. Ochenkowski, Englands wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im

Ausgange des Mittelalters (Jena, 1879), pp. 35 seq., where the

whole question is discussed with full knowledge of the texts.



¹⁰ Nasse, Ueber die mittelalterliche Feldgemeinschaft und die

Einhegungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts in England (Bonn, 1869), pp. 4,

5; Vinogradov, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892).



¹¹ Seebohm, The English Village Community, 3rd edition, 1884,

pp. 13-15.



¹² "An examination into the details of an Enclosure Act will

make clear the point that the system as above described [communal

ownership] is the system which it was the object of the Enclosure

Act to remove" (Seebohm, l.c. p. 13). And further on, "They were

generally drawn in the same form, commencing with the recital

that the open and common fields lie dispersed in small pieces,

intermixed with each other and inconveniently situated; that

divers persons own parts of them, and are entitled to rights of

common on them... and that it is desired that they may be divided

and enclosed, a specific share being let out and allowed to each

owner" (p. 14). Porter's list contained 3867 such Acts, of which

the greatest numbers fall upon the decades of 1770-1780 and

1800-1820, as in France.



¹³ In Switzerland we see a number of communes, ruined by wars,

which have sold part of their lands, and now endeavour to buy

them back.



¹⁴ A. Buchenberger, "Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik," in A.

Wagner's Handbuch der politischen Oekonomie, 1892, Band i. pp.

280 seq.



¹⁵ G.L. Gomme, "The Village Community, with special reference to

its Origin and Forms of Survival in Great Britain" (Contemporary

Science Series), London, 1890, pp. 141-143; also his Primitive

Folkmoots (London, 1880), pp. 98 seq.



¹⁶ "In almost all parts of the country, in the Midland and

Eastern counties particularly, but also in the west -- in

Wiltshire, for example -- in the south, as in Surrey, in the

north, as in Yorkshire, -- there are extensive open and common

fields. Out of 316 parishes of Northamptonshire 89 are in this

condition; more than 100 in Oxfordshire; about 50,000 acres in

Warwickshire; in Berkshire half the county; more than half of

Wiltshire; in Huntingdonshire out of a total area of 240,000

acres 130,000 were commonable meadows, commons, and fields"

(Marshall, quoted in Sir Henry Maine's Village Communities in the

East and West, New York edition, 1876, pp. 88, 89).



¹⁷ Ibid. p. 88; also Fifth Lecture. The wide extension of

"commons" in Surrey, even now, is well known.



¹⁸ In quite a number of books dealing with English country life

which I have consulted I have found charming descriptions of

country scenery and the like, but almost nothing about the daily

life and customs of the labourers.



¹⁹ In Switzerland the peasants in the open land also fell under

the dominion of lords, and large parts of their estates were

appropriated by the lords in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries. (See, for instance, Dr. A. Miaskowski, in Schmoller's

Forschungen, Bd. ii. 1879, Pp. 12 seq.) But the peasant war in

Switzerland did not end in such a crushing defeat of the peasants

as it did in other countries, and a great deal of the communal

rights and lands was retained. The self-government of the

communes is, in fact, the very foundation of the Swiss liberties.



²⁰ Miaskowski, in SchmolLer's Forschungen, Bd. ii. 1879, p. 15.



²¹ See on this subject a series of works, summed up in one of

the excellent and suggestive chapters (not yet translated into

English) which K. Bücher has added to the German translation of

Laveleye's Primitive Ownership. Also Meitzen, "Das Agrar- und

Forst-Wesen, die Allmenden und die Landgemeinden der Deutschen

Schweiz," in Jahrbuch für Staatswissenschaft, 1880, iv. (analysis

of Miaskowsky's works); O'Brien, "Notes in a Swiss village," in

Macmillan's Magazine, October 1885.



²² The wedding gifts, which often substantially contribute in

this country to the comfort of the young households, are

evidently a remainder of the communal habits.



²³ The communes own, 4,554,1O0 acres of woods out of 24,813,0O0

in the whole territory, and 6,936,300 acres of natural meadows

out of 11,394,000 acres in France. The remaining 2,000,000 acres

are fields, orchards, and so on.



²⁴ In Caucasia they even do better among the Georgians. As the

meal costs, and a poor man cannot afford to give it, a sheep is

bought by those same neighbours who come to aid in the work.



²⁵ Alfred Baudrillart, in H. Baudrillart's Les Populations

Rurales de la France, 3rd series (Paris, 1893), p. 479.



²⁶ The Journal des Economistes (August 1892, May and August

1893) has lately given some of the results of analyses made at

the agricultural laboratories at Ghent and at Paris. The extent

of falsification is simply incredible; so also the devices of the

"honest traders." In certain seeds of grass there was 32 per

cent. of gains of sand, coloured so as to Receive even an

experienced eye; other samples contained from 52 to 22 per cent.

only of pure seed, the remainder being weeds. Seeds of vetch

contained 11 per cent. of a poisonous grass (nielle); a flour for

cattle-fattening contained 36 per cent. of sulphates; and so on

ad infinitum.



²⁷ A. Baudrillart, l.c. p. 309. Originally one grower would

undertake to supply water, and several others would agee to make

use of it. "What especially characterises such associations," A.

Baudrillart remarks, "is that no sort of written agreement is

concluded. All is arranged in words. There was, however, not one

single case of difficulties having arisen between the parties."



²⁸ A. Baudrillart, l.c. pp. 300, 341, etc. M. Terssac, president

of the St. Gironnais syndicate (Ariège), wrote to my friend in

substance as follows: -- "For the exhibition of Toulouse our

association has grouped the owners of cattle which seemed to us

worth exhibiting. The society undertook to pay one-half of the

travelling and exhibition expenses; one-fourth was paid by each

owner, and the remaining fourth by those exhibitors who had got

prizes. The result was that many took part in the exhibition who

never would have done it otherwise. Those who got the highest

awards (350 francs) have contributed 10 per cent. of their

prizes, while those who have got no prize have only spent 6 to 7

francs each."



²⁹ In Württemberg 1,629 communes out of 1,910 have communal

property. They owned in 1863 over 1,000,000 acres of land. In

Baden 1,256 communes out of 1,582 have communal land; in

1884-1888 they held 121,500 acres of fields in communal culture,

and 675,000 acres of forests, i.e. 46 per cent. of the total area

under woods. In Saxony 39 per cent. of the total area is in

communal ownership (Schmoller's Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 359). In

Hohenzollern nearly two-thirds of all meadow land, and in

Hohenzollern-Hechingen 41 per cent. of all landed property, are

owned by the village communities (Buchenberger, Agrarwesen, vol.

i. p. 300).



³⁰ See K. Bücher, who, in a special chapter added to Laveleye's

Ureigenthum, has collected all information relative to the

village community in Germany.



³¹ K. Bücher, ibid. pp. 89, 90.



³² For this legislation and the numerous obstacles which were

put in the way, in the shape of red-tapeism and supervision, see

Buchenberger's Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, Bd. ii. pp. 342-363,

and p. 506, note.



³³ Buchenberger, l.c. Bd. ii. p. 510. The General Union of

Agricultural Co-operation comprises an aggregate of 1,679

societies. In Silesia an aggregate of 32,000 acres of land has

been lately drained by 73 associations; 454,800 acres in Prussia

by 516 associations; in Bavaria there are 1,715 drainage and

irrigation unions.



³⁴ See Appendix XII.



³⁵ For the Balkan peninsula see Laveleye's Propriété Primitive.



³⁶ The facts concerning the village community, contained in

nearly a hundred volumes (out of 450) of these inquests, have

been classified and summed up in an excellent Russian work by

"V.V." The Peasant Community (Krestianskaya Obschina), St.

Petersburg, 1892, which, apart from its theoretical value, is a

rich compendium of data relative to this subject. The above

inquests have also given origin to an immense literature, in

which the modern village-community question for the first time

emerges from the domain of generalities and is put on the solid

basis of reliable and sufficiently detailed facts.



³⁷ The redemption had to be paid by annuities for forty-nine

years. As years went, and the greatest part of it was paid, it

became easier and easier to redeem the smaller remaining part of

it, and, as each allotment could be redeemed individually,

advantage was taken of this disposition by traders, who bought

land for half its value from the ruined peasants. A law was

consequently passed to put a stop to such sales.



³⁸ Mr. V.V., in his Peasant Community, has grouped together all

facts relative to this movement. About the rapid agricultural

development of South Russia and the spread of machinery English

readers will find information in the Consular Reports (Odessa,

Taganrog).



³⁹ In some instances they proceeded with great caution. In one

village they began by putting together all meadow land, but only

a small portion of the fields (about five acres per soul) was

rendered communal; the remainder continued to be owned

individually. Later on, in 1862-1864, the system was extended,

but only in 1884 was communal possession introduced in full. --

V.V.'s Peasant Community, pp. 1-14.



⁴⁰ On the Mennonite village community see A. Klaus, Our Colonies

(Nashi Kolonii), St. Petersburg, 1869.



⁴¹ Such communal cultures are known to exist in 159 villages out

of 195 in the Ostrogozhsk district; in 150 out of 187 in

Slavyanoserbsk; in 107 village communities in Alexandrovsk, 93 in

Nikolayevsk, 35 in Elisabethgrad. In a German colony the communal

culture is made for repaying a communal debt. All join in the

work, although the debt was contracted by 94 householders out of

155.



⁴² Lists of such works which came under the notice of the

zemstvo statisticians will be found in V.V.'s Peasant Community,

pp. 459-600.



⁴³ In the government of Moscow the experiment was usually made

on the field which was reserved for the above-mentioned communal

culture.



⁴⁴ Several instances of such and similar improvements were given

in the Official Messenger, 1894, Nos. 256-258. Associations

between "horseless" peasants begin to appear also in South

Russia. Another extremely interesting fact is the sudden

development in Southern West Siberia of very numerous

co-operative creameries for making butter. Hundreds of them

spread in Tobolsk and Tomsk, without any one knowing wherefrom

the initiative of the movement came. It came from the Danish

co-operators, who used to export their own butter of higher

quality, and to buy butter of a lower quality for their own use

in Siberia. After a several years' intercourse, they introduced

creameries there. Now, a great export trade has grown out of

their endeavours.

    



Return to Table of Contents

To Chapter Eight

Marked-up by the 

Anarchy Archives
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

CHAPTER 7 MUTUAL AID AMONGST OURSELVES

Notes
