p Listening to our Narodniks one could really think that the Russian village commune is an exceptionally enduring organisation. "Neither the internecine struggles during the period of the independent principalities, the Mongol yoke, the bloody period of Ivan the Terrible, nor the years of unrest during the interregnum, nor the reforms of Peter and Catherine which introduced into Russia the principles of West European culture, nothing shook or changed the cherished institution of peasant life,” says one of the most easily excitable Narodniks, Mr. K—n, in a book on "the forms of land tenure among the Russian 246 people”; "the serfdom could not obliterate it, its abolition could not be brought about by the peasants leaving voluntarily for new lands or by forcible expulsions”, etc., etc., in a word,

p The ages went by, all strived to be happy, In the world all repeatedly changed,^^185^^

p but the Russian village commune remained unchanged and unchangeable. Unfortunately, this glorification, despite all its indisputable eloquence, proves nothing at all. The village communes display indubitable vitality as long as they do not emerge from the conditions of natural economy. "The simplicity of the organisation for production in these self-sufficing communities that constantly reproduce themselves in the same form, and when accidentally destroyed, spring up again on the spot and with the same name—this simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the unchangeableness of Asiatic societies, an unchangeableness in such striking contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of Asiatic states, and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty. The structure of the economical elements of society remains untouched by the storm-clouds of the political sky."  [246•* 

p But that same basic element of the barbarian societies which stands firm against the storms of political revolutions turns out to be powerless and defenceless against the logic of economic evolution. The development of money economy and commodity production little by little undermines communal land tenure.  [246•**  247 Added to this there is the destructive influence, of the state which is compelled by the very force of circumstances to support the principle of individualism. It is set on this road by the pressure of the higher estates, whose interests are hostile to the communal principle, as well as by its own ever-growing needs. The development of money economy, which in its turn is a consequence of the development of the productive forces, i.e., of the growth of the social wealth, brings into being new social functions, the maintenance of which would be unthinkable by means of the former system of taxes levied in kind. The need for money compels the government to support all the measures and principles of, social economy which increase the flow of money into the country and quicken the pulse of social and economic life. But these abstract principles of social economy do not exist of themselves, they are only the general expression of the real interests of a certain class, namely that of trade and industry. Having emerged partly from the former members of the village commune and partly from other estates, this class is essentially interested in mobilising immovable property and its owners, since the latter are labour-power. The principle of communal land tenure is an obstacle to both of these aims. That is why it first arouses aversion, and then more or less resolute 248 attacks on the part of the rising bourgeoisie. But neither do these blows destroy the village commune at once. Its downfall is prepared by degrees. For a long time the outward relations of the members of the commune apparently remain completely unchanged, whereas its inner character undergoes serious metamorphoses which result in its final disintegration. This process is sometimes a very lengthy one, but once it reaches a certain degree of intensity it cannot be stopped by any "seizures of power" by any secret society. The only serious rebuff to a victorious individualism can be given by those social forces which are called to being by the very process of the disintegration of the village commune. Its members, who were once equal as far as property, rights and obligations went, are divided, thanks to the process referred to, into two sections. Some are attracted towards the urban bourgeoisie and try to merge with it in a single class of exploiters. All the land of the village commune is little by little concentrated in the hands of this privileged class. Others are partly expelled from the commune and, being deprived of land, take their labour-power to market, while others again form a new category of commune pariahs whose exploitation is facilitated, among other things, by the conveniences afforded by the commune organisation. Only where historical circumstances elaborate a new economic basis for the reorganisation of society in the interests of this lower class, only when this class begins to adopt a conscious attitude to the basic causes of its enslavement and to the essential conditions of its emancipation, only there and only then can one “expect” a new social revolution without falling into Manilovism. This new process also takes place gradually, but once it has started it will go on to its logical end in just the same way with the relentlessness of astronomic phenomena. In that case the social revolution does not reiy on “possible” success of conspirators but on the certain and insuperable course of social evolution.

Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur, we may say addressing the Russian village commune. It is precisely the recentness of the development of money economy in Russia that explains the stability which our village commune has shown until recently and which still continues to move poor thinkers. Until the abolition of the serfdom nearly all the communal—and to a great extent the state—economy of Russia was a natural economy, highly favourable to the maintenance of the village commune. That is why the commune could not be destroyed by the political events at the time of the principality and veche system and the Moscow centralisation, of Peter’s reforms and the "drum-beat enlightenment" of the Petersburg autocrats. No matter how grievous the effect of these events was on the 249 national welfare, there is no doubt that in the final account they themselves were not forerunners of radical upheavals in the public economy, but only the consequence of the mutual relations existing between individual village communes. The Moscow despotism was based on the very "ancient foundations of the life of the people" that our Narodniks are so enthusiastic over. However, both the reactionary Baron von Haxthausen and the revolutionary agitator Bakunin understood this clearly. Were Russia isolated from the economic and political influences of West European life, it would be difficult to foresee when history would undermine at last the economic foundation of the Russian political set-up. But the influence of international relations accelerated the natural, though slow, process of development of money economy of commodity production. The Reform of February 19 was a necessary concession to the new economic trend and in turn it gave it new strength. The village commune did not, and indeed could not, adapt itself to the new conditions. Its organism was overstrained, and one must be blind not to notice the signs of its disintegration now. Those are the facts.