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| Obshchina | |
|---|---|
| Name | Obshchina |
| Native name | Община |
| Settlement type | Social institution |
Obshchina
The obshchina was a rural communal institution in Imperial Russia that organized landholding, taxation, and local administration among peasant households. It played a central role in debates involving reformers, theorists, and statesmen from the reigns of Alexander II of Russia to the Bolshevik seizure of power, intersecting with peasant uprisings, agrarian legislation, and ideological currents from Alexander Herzen to Vladimir Lenin. Its forms and functions influenced thinkers such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Pavel Aksakov, and policymakers like Mikhail Speransky and Pyotr Stolypin.
Scholars trace the Russian term to vernacular usage codified in documents from the reign of Catherine the Great and later bureaucratic records in the ministries of Nikolay Novosiltsev and Alexander Gorchakov, where it appears alongside terms such as communal mir, commune, and volost. Debates among philologists, including Vladimir Dal and Maxime Kovalevsky, contrasted obshchina with related words in Slavic languages used by ethnographers like Filippo Buonarroti and Lev Gumilyov. Legal lexicons compiled under Mikhail Speransky and texts by Konstantin Kavelin differentiated obshchina from other rural bodies like the volost and the rural zemstvo.
Historiography locates origins in medieval patterns of land use documented in chronicles associated with Ivan III of Russia and earlier Rus' sources studied alongside Byzantine and Mongol-period materials referenced by Vasily Klyuchevsky. Ethnographers such as Sergei Maksimov and agrarian historians like Vasily Tatishchev linked communal practices to periodic redistribution practices observed in provinces studied by Alexander Polovtsov and collectors like Nikolai Karamzin. Debates among scholars including Eugene Onegin (fictional)-era commentators and positivists such as Mikhail Bakunin and sociologists like Petr Struve examined transformations through serfdom reforms under Alexander II of Russia and the emancipation act influenced by ministers like Nikolay Milyutin.
The obshchina typically comprised peasant households organized into communal assemblies, with elected elders or starostas documented in archival records of the Ministry of the Interior (Russian Empire) and local reports to officials like Mikhail Muravyov. Administrative arrangements interfaced with institutions such as the volost court and the zemstvo as uniformed by administrators including Dmitry Tolstoy and jurists like Konstantin Pobedonostsev. Functionally, the obshchina managed collective decisions about land redistribution, tax apportionment, conscription quotas reported to officials in the Imperial Russian Army bureaucracy, and the enforcement of communal norms, with practice recorded in field studies by social scientists such as Alexander Chayanov and ethnographers including Bronisław Malinowski.
Land tenure under the obshchina involved periodic repartitioning of strips and allotments, a system analyzed by agrarian economists including Alexander Chayanov, Vladimir Lenin, and Ivan Ilyin. Agricultural practice in communal holdings interfaced with crop rotations and mir-centered collective labor observed in surveys performed by committees led by figures like Pyotr Stolypin and scholars such as Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky. Disputes over allotment size, seasonal migration, and the impact of agricultural innovations were central to reports circulated among zemstvo reformers including Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin and critics like Georgi Plekhanov.
The obshchina regulated household membership, marriage settlements, and inheritance as adjudicated by commune assemblies and local courts under statutes reviewed by jurists like Fedor Dostoevsky-era commentators and legal scholars including Boris Chicherin. Social stratification within communes—land-poor peasants, kulaks, and economically distinct households—was a focus of sociological studies by Alexander Herzen sympathizers and later analyses by Nikolai Kondratiev and demographers working with the Russian Academy of Sciences. Legal conflicts over communal obligations, tax liability, and mobility were litigated in institutions influenced by ministers such as Mikhail Speransky and administrators like Georgy Lvov.
Reformers and revolutionaries variously invoked the obshchina in plans for modernization, emancipation, and socialist transition. The 1861 Emancipation reform overseen by officials including Nikolay Milyutin and debated in the State Duma engaged questions of obshchina survival addressed by critics such as Pyotr Kropotkin and proponents like Nikolai Bukharin. During the 1905 Revolution and the 1917 Revolutions, agrarian programs promoted by leaders including Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Alexander Kerensky, and Grigori Rasputin confronted obshchina structures, while peasant soviets and land seizures echoed ideas developed by populists like Alexander Herzen and narodniks such as Nikolay Mikhaylovsky.
State interventions—most prominently the Stolypin reforms advocated by Pyotr Stolypin—aimed to dissolve communal tenure, encouraging private farming and migration to cities under policies tied to industrialists like Sergei Witte and financiers such as Pavel Ryabushinsky. Soviet-era collectivization enacted by officials including Joseph Stalin and planners like Vyacheslav Molotov transformed or eradicated obshchina forms, a process analyzed by historians including Orlando Figes, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Richard Pipes, and economists like Alexander Gerschenkron. Contemporary scholars at institutions such as the Russian Academy of Sciences and universities influenced by historians like Dominic Lieven and Allan K. Wildavsky revisit obshchina as a subject for comparative rural studies alongside international examples from England, France, and China in works by comparativists including James C. Scott and Eric Hobsbawm.
Category:Russian social history