ew
project of its own, which ultimately received, after undergoing
modification in detail, the Imperial assent. Instead of being a mere
chancellerie, as many expected, it became in a certain sense the author
of the Emancipation Law.

* Known as the Redaktsionnaya Komissiya, or Elaboration
Commission. Strictly speaking, there were two, but they are
commonly spoken of as one.

There was, as we have seen, in nearly all the Provincial Committees
a majority and a minority, the former of which strove to defend the
interests of the proprietors, whilst the latter paid more attention to
theoretical considerations, and endeavoured to secure for the peasantry
a large amount of land and Communal self-government. In the Commission
there were the same two parties, but their relative strength was very
different. Here the men of theory, instead of forming a minority, were
more numerous than their opponents, and enjoyed the support of the
Government, which regulated the proceedings. In its instructions we see
how much the question had ripened under the influence of the theoretical
considerations. There is no longer any trace of the idea that the
Emancipation should be gradual; on the contrary, it is expressly
declared that the immediate effect of the law should be the complete
abolition of the proprietor's authority. There is even evidence of a
clear intention of preventing the proprietor as far as possible from
exercising any influence over his former serfs. The sharp distinction
between the land occupied by the village and the arable land to be ceded
in usufruct likewise disappears, and it is merely said that efforts
should be made to enable the peasants to become proprietors of the land
they required.

The aim of the Government had thus become clear and well defined. The
task to be performed was to transform the serfs at once, and with the
least possible disturbance of the existing economic conditions, into
a class of small Communal proprietors--that is to say, a class of free
peasants possessing a house and garden and a share of the Communal land.
To effect this it was merely necessary to declare the serf personally
free, to draw a clear line of demarcation between the Communal land and
the rest of the estate, and to determine the price or rent which should
be paid for this Communal property, inclusive of the land on which the
village was built.

The law was prepared in strict accordance with these principles. As