Volost secretaries may have been
punished or dismissed, but the peasant self-government as a whole has
not been perceptibly improved.

Let us glance now at the opinions of those who hold that the material
progress of the peasantry is prevented chiefly, not by the mere abuses
of the Communal administration, but by the essential principles of the
Communal institutions, and especially by the practice of periodically
redistributing the Communal land. From the theoretical point of view
this question is one of great interest, and it may acquire in the future
an immense practical significance; but for the present it has not, in my
opinion, the importance which is usually attributed to it. There can be
no doubt that it is much more difficult to farm well on a large number
of narrow strips of land, many of which are at a great distance from the
farmyard, than on a compact piece of land which the farmer may divide
and cultivate as he pleases; and there can be as little doubt that the
husbandman is more likely to improve his land if his tenure is secure.
All this and much more of the same kind must be accepted as indisputable
truth, but it has little direct bearing on the practical question under
consideration. We are not considering in the abstract whether it would
be better that the peasant should be a farmer with abundant capital and
all the modern scientific appliances, but simply the practical question,
What are the obstructions which at present prevent the peasant from
ameliorating his actual condition?

That the Commune prevents its members from adopting various systems
of high farming is a supposition which scarcely requires serious
consideration. The peasants do not yet think of any such radical
innovations; and if they did, they have neither the knowledge nor the
capital necessary to effect them. In many villages a few of the richer
and more intelligent peasants have bought land outside of the Commune
and cultivate it as they please, free from all Communal restraints; and
I have always found that they cultivate this property precisely in the
same way as their share of the Communal land. As to minor changes, we
know by experience that the Mir opposes to them no serious obstacles.

The cultivation of beet for the production of sugar has greatly
increased in the central and southwestern provinces, and flax is now
largely produced in Communes in northern districts where it was formerly
cultivated merely for domestic use. T