360 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Other circumstances had interposed to check the intended opera- 

 tion of this great economic revolution. In 1880 over one fourth of 

 the peasants in the eight governments composing the richest region 

 of the empire, comprising the agricultural zone of the center, were 

 under " temporary obligations," and thus far from perfect freemen. 

 " In the more fertile regions of the black-mold belt, where, owing 

 to the outlets oj^ened by the railroads, the value of land has rapidly 

 increased, the landlords frequently found it to their advantage not 

 to consent to its redemption, so as to retain the comjDulsory services of 

 the peasants. Now the statute did not give the peasant the right to 

 demand the redemption; this right belonged exclusively to the mas- 

 ter, and all that the peasants could do in such a case was to reduce 

 their lots to the legal minimum allowed for that particular local- 

 ity." * To hasten the end, Alexander III made redemption ob- 

 ligatory. 



Although nearly forty years have passed since the ukase of 

 emancipation was promulgated, it is still too early to give a definite 

 judgment upon its results. The expectations of its framers have 

 not been attained, in part because of the immensity of the task and 

 diversity of conditions to be met, and in part because the immediate 

 ajjplication of the ukase was made not by those who had thought 

 out the scheme, but by others, who were either indifferent or even 

 hostile to the measure. The serf has not generally become an inde- 

 pendent landholder, nor has he gained that economic self-reliance 

 that was so ardently desired. He is even less able than before to 

 encounter a bad season, short crops, or a cattle plague, for he has 

 no master who may make good his losses and help him to tide over 

 his difficulties. On the other hand, the peasant has not secured what 

 he believed to be his rights, and is not a little discontented that his 

 dream of full and free possession of the land has not been fulfilled. 

 The many and increasing taxes bring home to him the responsibilities 

 of property, but give him little for meeting the increasing burdens. 

 '' Great is the number of peasants who, to-day, pay taxes and dues 

 as heavy as in the time of serfdom, while they have less land, less 

 forest, often less live stock, and less credit than before the eman- 

 cii:)ation, which, under such crushing conditions, could not raj^idly 

 augment the well-being of the people nor improve the culture of 

 the soil. It has frequently enriched wealthy districts, and sometimes 

 appears to have still more impoverished poor ones. Official statistics 

 have ascertained that in many localities the cattle had diminished 

 in number, hand in hand with the lack of cattle goes that of agri- 

 cultural implements and of manure, so that the peasant's already 

 primitive mode of farming not only has not improved, but has in 



* LeroyBeaulieu. The Empire of the Tsars, vo'. i, p. 443. 



