g the intervals between the revisions, a complete
redistribution and reallotment of the land. Of these two systems the
former is now more frequently employed.

The system of allotment adopted depends entirely on the will of the
particular Commune. In this respect the Communes enjoy the most complete
autonomy, and no peasant ever dreams of appealing against a Communal
decree.* The higher authorities not only abstain from all interference
in the allotment of the Communal lands, but remain in profound ignorance
as to which system the Communes habitually adopt. Though the Imperial
Administration has a most voracious appetite for symmetrically
constructed statistical tables--many of them formed chiefly out
of materials supplied by the mysterious inner consciousness of the
subordinate officials--no attempt has yet been made, so far as I know,
to collect statistical data which might throw light on this important
subject. In spite of the systematic and persistent efforts of the
centralised bureaucracy to regulate minutely all departments of the
national life, the rural Communes, which contain about five-sixths of
the population, remain in many respects entirely beyond its influence,
and even beyond its sphere of vision! But let not the reader be
astonished overmuch. He will learn in time that Russia is the land of
paradoxes; and meanwhile he is about to receive a still more startling
bit of information. In "the great stronghold of Caesarian despotism
and centralised bureaucracy," these Village Communes, containing about
five-sixths of the population, are capital specimens of representative
Constitutional government of the extreme democratic type!

* This has been somewhat modified by recent legislation.
According to the Emancipation Law of 1861, redistribution of
the land could take place at any time provided it was voted
by a majority of two-thirds at the Village Assembly. By a
law of 1893 redistribution cannot take place oftener than
once in twelve years, and must receive the sanction of
certain local authorities.

When I say that the rural Commune is a good specimen of Constitutional
government, I use the phrase in the English, and not in the Continental
sense. In the Continental languages a Constitutional regime implies
the existence of a long, formal document, in which the functions of the
various institutions, the powers of the various authorities, and the
methods of procedure are ca