Section 94. The Freeing of the Serfs and Growth of the In all the long list of personal recollections by distinguished Europeans, there is none more charming in spirit or fuller of interesting information than Memoirs of a Revolutionist, by Prince Kropotkin (born in 1842), who, as a youth, had an excellent opportunity of observing every aspect of Russian life from the highest to the lowest. He describes the old régime in Russia with striking fidelity, and traces in the most entertaining style the progress of the revolutionary spirit in Russia during the last half of the nineteenth century. The following picture of domestic life in a Russian noble's family, and of serfdom in the old days, is taken from the pages of this eminent revolutionist. ee Wealth was measured in those times by the number of 32 "souls" that a landed proprietor owned. So many souls" m in meant so many male serfs; women did not count. My father, of who owned nearly twelve hundred souls, in three different no provinces, and who had, in addition to his peasants' holdings, large tracts of land which were cultivated by these peasants, was accounted a rich man. He lived up to his reputation, which meant that his house was open to any number of visitors, and that he kept a very large household. for We were a family of eight, occasionally of ten or twelve; but Fi fifty servants at Moscow and half as many more in the country in were considered not one too many. Four coachmen to attend a dozen horses, three cooks for the masters and two more for the servants, a dozen men to wait upon us at dinner time (one man, plate in hand, standing behind each person seated at the table), and girls innumerable in the maidservants' room, how could any one do with less than this? Besides, the ambition of every landed proprietor was that everything required for his household should be made at home, by his own men. (c To maintain such numbers of servants as were kept in our house in town would have been simply ruinous, if all provisions had to be bought at Moscow; but in those times of serfdom things were managed very simply. When winter came, father sat at his table and wrote the following to the manager of his estate: "On receipt of this, and as soon as winter communication is established in the city of Moscow, twenty-five peasant sledges, drawn by two horses each, one horse from each house, and one sledge and one man from each second house, are to be loaded with (so many) quarters of oats, (so many) of wheat, and (so many) of rye, as also with all the poultry and geese and ducks, well frozen, which have to be killed this winter, well packed and accompanied by a complete list, under the supervision of a well-chosen man";- and so it went on for a couple of pages, till the next full stop was reached. After this there followed an enumeration of the penalties which would be inflicted in case the provisions should not reach the house situated in such a street, number so and so, in due time and in good condition. Some time before Christmas the twenty-five peasant sledges really entered our gates, and covered the surface of the wide yard. . . . Serfdom was then in the last years of its existence. It is recent history, it seems to be only of yesterday; and yet, even in Russia, few realize what serfdom was in reality. There is a dim conception that the conditions which it created were very bad; but those conditions, as they affected human beings bodily and mentally, are not generally understood. It is amazing, indeed, to see how quickly an institution and its social consequences are forgotten when the institution has ceased to exist, and with what rapidity men and things change. I will try to recall the conditions of serfdom by telling, not what I heard, but what I saw. Uliana, the housekeeper, stands in the passage leading to father's room, and crosses herself; she dares neither to advance nor to retreat. At last, having recited a prayer, she enters the room and reports, in a hardly audible voice, that the store of tea is nearly at an end, that there are only twenty pounds of sugar left, and that the other provisions will soon be exhausted. ee Thieves, robbers! shouts my father. “And you, you are The in league with them!" His voice thunders throughout the in a house. Our stepmother leaves Uliana to face the storm. But father cries, "Frol, call the princess! Where is she?" And when she enters he receives her with the same reproaches. "You also are in league with this progeny of Ham; you are standing up for them"; and so on, for half an hour or more. Then he commences to verify the accounts. At the same time he thinks about the hay. Frol is sent to weigh what is left of that, and our stepmother is sent to be present during the weighing, while father calculates how much of it ought to be in the barn. A considerable quantity of hay appears to be missing, and Uliana cannot account for several pounds of such and such provisions. Father's voice becomes more and more menacing; Uliana is trembling; but it is the coachman who now enters the room, and is stormed at by his master. Father springs at him, strikes him, but he keeps repeating, "Your highness must have made a mistake." Father repeats his calculations, and this time it appears that there is more hay in the barn than there ought to be. The shouting continues; he now reproaches the coachman with not having given the horses their daily rations in full; but the coachman calls on all the saints to witness that he gave the animals their due, and Frol invokes the Virgin to confirm the coachman's appeal. But father will not be appeased. He calls in Makár, the piano tuner and sub-butler, and reminds him of all his recent sins. He was drunk last week, and must have been drunk yesterday, for he broke half a dozen plates. In fact, the breaking of these plates was the real cause of all the disturbance; our stepmother had reported the fact to father in the morning, and that was why Uliana was received with more scolding than was usually the case, why the verification of the hay was undertaken, and why father now continues to shout that "this progeny of Ham deserve all the punishment on earth. Of a sudden there is a lull in the storm. My father takes A h his seat at the table and writes a note. "Take Makár with this lash note to the police station, and let a hundred lashes with the a se 330. Declaration of the Tsar emancipating the serfs (March birch rod be given to him." Terror and absolute silence reign in the house. Yet father was not among the worst of landowners. On the contrary, the servants and the peasants considered him one of the best. What we saw in our house was going on everywhere, often in much more cruel forms. The flogging of the serfs was a regular part of the duties of the police and of the fire brigade. When Alexander came to the throne in 1855 Russia was suffering from a great crisis in the government and in industry, resulting from the disasters of the Crimean War. The new Tsar was quick to see that many radical reforms were demanded for his empire, and after due deliberation upon the state of the serfs in his dominions, he issued in March, 1861, a decree emancipating the peasants from their galling bondage. A careful examination of this famous document, which assumes in Russian history the place which the proclamation emancipating the slaves assumes in American history, will reveal the provisions which were later destined to be the source of terrible oppression to the peasants. It will be observed that the Tsar treats the noble landlords throughout with the most distinguished consideration. We, Alexander II, by the grace of God Tsar and Autocrat of all the Russias, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland, etc., make known to all our faithful subjects: Summoned to the throne of our ancestors by Divine Provi3, 1861) (con- dence and the sacred law of heredity, we have promised ourdensed) selves with heartfelt sincerity to extend our affection and imperial solicitude to all our faithful subjects, whatever their rank or condition, from the soldier who nobly bears arms in the defense of his country to the humble artisan who faithfully carries on his industry; from the functionary who occupies a high office in the State to the laborer whose plow furrows the fields. Russia ent and Crimean ter due ut with L se As we consider the various classes of which the State is composed, we are convinced that the laws of our empire which 9 have wisely provided for the upper and middle classes, and have fixed with precision their rights and obligations, have not reached the same degree of success in relation to the peasants bound to the soil, who, either through ancient laws or custom, have been hereditarily subjected to the authority of the landlords. Indeed, the rights of landowners over their serfs have hitherto been very extensive and very imperfectly defined by the laws, which have been supplemented by tradition, custom, and the good will of the landlords. ha pa This system has at best established patriarchal relations based H upon the fairness and benevolence of the landowners and an affectionate docility on the part of the peasants; but as man- ch ners have lost their simplicity, the paternal ties between the landlords and the peasants have been weakened. Furthermore, as the seigniorial authority falls into the hands of those exclusively intent on their own selfish advantage, those relations of mutual good will have tended to give way and open the door to arbitrariness, burdensome to the peasants and hostile to their prosperity. This has served to develop in them an indifference to all progress. These facts did not fail to impress our predecessors of glori- F ous memory, and they took measures to improve the lot of the ha peasants; but these measures have had little effect, since they th were either dependent for their execution on the individual initia- th tive of such landlords as might be animated by a liberal spirit or were merely local in their scope, or adopted as an experiment. for ne We became convinced, therefore, that the work of funda- TI mentally ameliorating the condition of the peasant was for us a la sacred heritage from our ancestors, a mission which in the course of events Divine Providence had called us to fulfill. We ti have commenced this work by demonstrating our imperial confidence in the nobility of Russia, who have given us so many proofs of their devotion and their constant disposition to make sacrifices for the well-being of the country. It was to the nobility themselves that, in conformity to their own wishes, we reserved the right of formulating the provisions for the new organization se to |