In the Land of Tolstoi / 23 (1897) Author: Jonas Jonsson Stadling Translator: Will Reason With: Gerda Tirén, Johan Tirén - Tema: Russia Table of Contents / Innehåll | << Previous | Next >>
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The economic position in the government of Samara in 1889
was as follows:

Peasant holdings under cultivation	...	48,468
Communal land in pledge or leased out	...	453,917	hectares
Arrears of taxes to Government	...	5,808,459	roubles
Debts to usurers	...	1,170,932	„

These facts and figures relate to times before the famine.
During my visit I made the acquaintance of a liberal man of
great practical knowledge and high position, who described the
condition of things as follows:

“At present the peasants are slaves in the power of the
kulacks, who have a kind of agreement or monopoly with the
authorities for stripping the people to the bones. No one can
have any transactions whatever with the peasants without the
permission of the officials, and these take care that those so
privileged shall be men of their own kidney. It is only in
name that the peasants are free; virtually they are in worse
slavery than before the abolition, for it was to the interest of
their owners to see that they did not starve to death. If the
kulacks do “good business,” the officials get their share. If the
peasants should steal a bundle of hay from the rich kulacks,
they get three years’ imprisonment, with flogging besides. If
these gentlemen or any of the officials rob a peasant of all he
has no notice is taken of it.”

“But do not the kulacks and other capitalists show some
sympathy with the people in such fearful distress as the
present?”

“You can see yourself what kind of sympathy it is,” he
said ; “that meal that you bought in Zemljanki, consisting of
chaff, sawdust, and dirt, is a very good example of it; this is
what they sell or lend to the mushiks. I do not know of one
solitary instance where a kulack has opened a soup-kitchen, let
us say, for the starving. I know of many where they have lent
one rouble for the purchase of a coffin for a peasant’s near
relative, and demanded three in return; or where they have
provided the starving with a little food, on condition that they
pledge themselves to give their work in the busiest times for
several years!

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