, prevented
the less intelligent and less enterprising members of the Commune from
becoming bankrupt. The Communal equality thus artificially maintained
has now disappeared, the restrictions on individual freedom of action
have been removed, the struggle for life has become intensified, and, as
always happens in such circumstances, the strong men go up in the world
while the weak ones go to the wall. All over the country we find on the
one hand the beginnings of a village aristocracy--or perhaps we should
call it a plutocracy, for it is based on money--and on the other hand
an ever-increasing pauperism. Some peasants possess capital, with which
they buy land outside the Commune or embark in trade, while others have
to sell their live stock, and have sometimes to cede to neighbours their
share of the Communal property. This change in rural life is so
often referred to that, in order to express it a new, barbarous word,
differentsiatsia (differentiation) has been invented.

Hoping to obtain fuller information with the aid of official protection,
I attached myself to one of the travelling sections of an agricultural
Commission appointed by the Government, and during a whole summer I
helped to collect materials in the provinces bordering on the Volga. The
inquiry resulted in a gigantic report of nearly 2,500 folio pages, but
the general conclusions were extremely vague. The peasantry, it was
said, were passing, like the landed proprietors, through a period of
transition, in which the main features of their future normal life had
not yet become clearly defined. In some localities their condition had
decidedly improved, whereas in others it had improved little or not
at all. Then followed a long list of recommendations in favour
of Government assistance, better agronomic education, competitive
exhibitions, more varied rotation of crops, and greater zeal on the
part of the clergy in disseminating among the people moral principles in
general and love of work in particular.

Not greatly enlightened by this official activity, I returned to my
private studies, and at the end of six years I published my impressions
and conclusions in the first edition of this work. While recognising
that there was much uncertainty as to the future, I was inclined, on the
whole, to take a hopeful view of the situation. I was unable, however,
to maintain permanently that comfortable frame of mind. After my
departure from Russia in 1878, the accounts