49

Thus Gl. Uspensky explains all the aspects of peasant life and all the distinctive features of peasant thought. His explanations proceed logically from a single basic principle. But what is this principle itself, what are the "conditions of agricultural labour"? Our author expresses himself somewhat vaguely on this point, which has a rather unfortunate effect on his theory of the "power of the land”. Generally speaking, by the "conditions of agricultural labour" one can understand the social conditions in which the farmer of any given country finds himself at any given time, i.e., the relations in law of the farmer to his fellow workers, other farmers, his relations with the supreme authority, with other estates, etc. But Gl. Uspensky is not content with such a superficial concept of the conditions of agricultural labour. In his analysis he goes much further and, as we have already seen, tries to explain all the social relations of an agricultural country by other “conditions” from which these relations proceed as a kind of derivative. What are the “conditions” about which Uspensky speaks? Leaving aside all the relations into which people enter with one another in the production process, i.e., in this case leaving

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50 aside all the social conditions of agricultural labour, we are confronted solely with man’s relations with nature. And it is precisely man’s relation with nature that Gl. Uspensky has in mind. He says outright that he regards nature as the “root” of all the " influences" of agricultural labour on the farmer and on the whole system of his social relations. "It is with nature that a man does his work, he depends on it directly.” Hence the “power” of nature and above all, of course, of the land over man. This is correct, without the slightest doubt. But it is not enough. Man’s dependence on nature has a measure which itself changes.

p After reaching a certain degree, this quantitative change in the measure of man’s dependence on nature brings about a qualitative change in man’s actual relation with nature. Originally under the power of nature, he himself gradually acquires power over nature. In accordance with this human relations also change not only in the actual production process, but in society as a whole. Above all the growth of man’s power over nature is expressed, of course, in the increase in the productivity of his labour, in the growth of the amount of productive forces at his disposal. Therefore it can be said that the degree of development of productive forces determines both people’s mutual relations in production and all their social relations. Did Gl. Uspensky take this aspect of the matter into account? No, he did not, because if he had, he would not have talked about the "conditions of agricultural labour" as something constant and immutable. He would himself have seen that they are very changeable and that a change in them is bound to lead to a change in the whole pattern of our village life, in the peasants’ relations with one another in law, their attitude to the supreme authority and even their religious ideas. At the same time his own views on Russian life would have become far more “harmonious” and consistent. He would have needed only to decide in what direction the conditions of our agricultural labour should be changed, in order to indicate clearly to the "new people" the most fitting role for them in the historical process of this change.

p Let us quote some examples to clarify what has been said. Gl. Uspensky speaks of the peasants’ attitude to the supreme authority in such terms as to suggest that the "conditions of agricultural labour" could produce no other attitude to it. Yet we see that agricultural labour is very widespread in the United States, but American farmers have an altitude to this system which is completely different from that of Russian peasants. In general, American agricultural labour produces a lot of grain and not a single "Ivan Yermolayevich”. The American farmerdoes his job, as we know, far better than the Russian peasant, and at the same time he is able to think about more than just “ducks”: he takes part in the political life of his country. Whence 51 this difference? It cannot be explained by simply referring to the "conditions of agricultural labour”. One must show how and why conditions of agricultural labour in America differ from conditions of agricultural labour in Russia. The whole matter is easily explained by the theory of productive forces. The American colonists took with them from Europe and developed on new ground productive forces of a far higher order than those at the disposal of the Russian peasant. A different level of development of productive forces means a different relation between people in the production process and a different pattern of social relations as a whole.

p Moreover, we see that even with a very low level of development of productive forces an absolute monarchy did not emerge in all farming peoples. Are there not many examples in history of republican federations of agricultural communes? In this case, besides the conditions of agricultural labour one must also take into account what Hegel called "the geographical background to world history".™ Republican federations of agricultural communes arose almost exclusively in mountainous countries or countries well protected by nature. On the other hand, farming peoples inhabiting the broad expanses of plains and big river basins always grew up under despotism.  [51•*  Examples of this are China, Egypt and, unfortunately, our Russia. Therefore everything that Gl. Uspensky says about the Russian peasant’s attitude to the supreme authority is perfectly correct. Russian absolutism becomes unstable only in so far as the conditions of agricultural labour described by our author change.

p Another example. Gl. I. Uspensky appears to think that the "conditions of agricultural labour" inevitably lead to the existence of a village commune with re-allotment. But in this case also history and ethnography strongly undermine the validity of his conclusions. They provide many examples of other types of agricultural communes, from communist ones to those of homesteads passed on by inheritance. Communes of the latter type can also be found in Russia. Obviously, the origin of all these different sorts of communes can again not be explained by a simple reference to the "conditions of agricultural labour”. One must show in what way differences in these conditions have led to differences in the internal organisation of the communes. We do not propose to go into an explanation here of the process that leads to the disintegration of primitive communist communes. The connection between this process and the development of productive forces is shown in Mr. Ziber’s fine book Essays on Primitive Economic Culture. Having referred the reader to it, we shall seek in Gl. Us- 52 pensky’s works an indication of the path which leads to the disintegration of the village commune with re-allotment.

_p To quote Uspensky, the above-raentioued Ivan Yermolayo^ich "complains about the people, about tiie other members of the village commune: ’the people are not what they used to be, they’ve got worse, got spoilt”’. In other words, Ivan Yermolayevich is already dissatisfied with the present state of affairs in the commune. In his opinion things were, of course, bad uader serfdom: "What was good about those days?" But all the same there, was more equality between the peasants. "In those days, you know, it was bad for everyone, one and all, but today it’s like this: you want to make things better for yourself, but your neighbour’s got it in for you.” He explains this at first glance incomprehensible phenomenon as follows: "Judge for yourself, I’ll tell you. The mir woodland is divided into plots to be felled; each man clears his own plot. So I cut down the trees in my plot, pull up the roots, clear the soil and I’ve got some more ploughland. As soon as my amount of ploughland increases there is a re-allotment. ’You’ve got more land than the other man with the same number of household taxpayers,’ they say. ’Your amount of land from tho mir has increased, so there must be a re-allotment!’"

p “But everyone can clear his piece of woodland, can’t he?" asks the author.

p “Yes, but not everyone wants to. That’s the point. One -nan has got weaker, another man poorer, and a third is lazy; it’s true, there are lazy people. If I get up before dawn, work till the sweat pours off me, and reap more grain, they’ll take it away from me, be sure of that! Then it’s shared out and everyone gets such a tiny scrap that it’s no good to them either, see! Twice they’ve taken land away from me like that, and all within the law,—’there’s more land; but not just for you, everyone must have a bit more’. So there’s no way of getting on. I want to leave the commune; one bloke here told me I can, but I don’t know how much it costs."

p As you can see, while retaining all the “harmony” of his farmer’s world outlook, Ivan Yermolayevich is against the selfsame commune with re-allotment that, in Gl. Uspensky’s opinion, proceeds inevitably from the conditions of agricultural labour. How is this discrepancy to be explained? By the fact that Ivan Yermolayevich understands better than Uspensky the present state of "conditions of agricultural labour" in Russia. He sees that in order to cultivate the over-worked land more means of production must be expended than before. But not all peasants have the same means of production at their disposal: "one man has got weaker, another man poorer, and a third is lazy”. Therefore the ro-allotment of communal land leads to inconveniences which did not exist before. And therefore Ivan Yermolayovich is going to upset Messrs. Narodniks by leaving the commune. 53 He will become an even deadlier enemy of the commune if he goes over to intensive working of the land. The disintegration of the commune thus results logically from a change in the technical "conditions of agricultural labour".

p One more point. Seeing in the peasants’ relations in law the existence of the labour principle by virtue of which the product should belong to the producer, Gl. Uspensky does not hesitate to ascribe this principle also to the conditions of agricultural labour. But the same labour principle also exists in the common law of primitive hunting communes. So what is the relevance of the conditions of agricultural labour here? Obviously this principle does not owe its existence to them. On the contrary, in the modern village this notorious labour principle frequently turns into its direct opposite.  [53•*  After selling on the market the products created "by the labour of his own hands”, the peasant can use the money he has obtained to buy the labour power of a farmlabourer and carry on further production with the assistance of another man’s hands.

p Such a relation between people in production leads, as we know, to the appropriation by one man of the products of the labour of another man or other men. Here again we see how the present state of agricultural labour in Russia leads logically to a rejection of what Gl. Uspensky regards as the necessary consequence of its “conditions”.

p We repeat, Gl. Uspensky would not have been guilty of such contradictions if, in arriving at the idea of the dependence of the •whole pattern of peasant life on the conditions of agricultural labour, he had tried to understand the concept of these conditions. This would have been all the easier for him since the theory of the dependence of human progress on the development of productive forces has long been elaborated in West European literature. Marx’s historical ideas would have introduced a great deal of “harmony” into Gl. Uspensky’s world outlook.

p However, our author’s works contain abundant material illustrating to which state of productive forces his picture of popular life corresponds. "On the very same spot,” we read there, "where Ivan Yermolayevich worked his fingers to the bone merely in order to have enough to eat, his ancestors had also worked their fingers to the bone for no less than a thousand years and, as you can imagine, had not thought up or done anything at all to make it easier to get enough to eat. His ancestors, who had lived in this spot for a thousand years (and had long since been ploughed with oats and eaten up by the cattle in the form of oats) did not even bequeath to their descendants the idea that the drudgery 54 caused by the need to have enough to eat should be made easier; in this respect there is nothing at all to remind him of his ancestors. In Solovyov’s History one can find out something about the past in this area, but here, on the spot, nobody knows anything about it. It is impossible to imagine anything worse than the conditions in which the peasant works, and we must assume that a thousand years ago there were the same bast sandals, the same wooden plough and the same draught animals as now. His forefathers did not leave behind them any communication, bridges or the slightest improvements to ease labour. The bridge you can see was built by his ancestors and is almost falling down. All his implements are primitive, heavy and awkward. Ivan Yermolayevich’s forefathers left him impassable marshes, which can be crossed only in winter, and I believe that Ivan Yermolayevich will leave his ’lad’ the marshes in the same condition. And his lad will flounder and ’struggle along with his horse’ just as Ivan Yermolayevich does now.... For a thousand years they have not been able to fill in the marshes over a mere quarter of a verst, which would immediately have increased the income of these parts, yet all the Ivan Yermolayeviches know perfectly well that this work could be done once and for all in two Sundays, if each of the twenty-six homesteads were to send out a man with an axe and a horse."

Generation has succeeded generation, but each successive generation has lived and worked in exactly the same conditions in which the preceding one lived and worked. This fact alone has been quite enough to give peasant life great stability and “harmony”. But it was, as you can see, a totally savage harmony. The Russian farmer cannot remain in the same "conditions of agricultural labour" that are described by Gl. Uspensky. It is to be hoped that history will finally take pity on its outcast, lead him out of his stagnation, put greater productive forces in his hands, and give him greater power over nature. The ever increasing relations with the West may serve as sufficient guarantee of this. The only question is in what sense an increase in the productivity of agricultural labour will change our village system and in what way our "new people" can come to the aid of the peasant in this case.