liabilities.  If a peasant wishes to go away for a short time, in order to work elsewhere, he must obtain a written permission, which serves him as a passport during his absence; and he may be recalled at any moment by a Communal decree.  In reality he is rarely recalled so long as he sends home regularly the full amount of his taxes—­including the dues which he has to pay for the temporary passport—­but sometimes the Commune uses the power of recall for purposes of extortion.  If it becomes known, for instance, that an absent member is receiving a good salary or otherwise making money, he may one day receive a formal order to return at once to his native village, but he is probably informed at the same time, unofficially, that his presence will be dispensed with if he will send to the Commune a certain specified sum.  The money thus sent is generally used by the Commune for convivial purposes. **

* This common responsibility for the taxes was abolished in 1903 by the Emperor, on the advice of M. Witte, and the other Communal fetters are being gradually relaxed.  A peasant may now, if he wishes, cease to be a member of the Commune altogether, as soon as he has defrayed all his outstanding obligations.

     ** With the recent relaxing of the Communal fetters,
     referred to in the foregoing note, this abuse should
     disappear.

In all countries the theory of government and administration differs considerably from the actual practice.  Nowhere is this difference greater than in Russia, and in no Russian institution is it greater than in the Village Commune.  It is necessary, therefore, to know both theory and practice; and it is well to begin with the former, because it is the simpler of the two.  When we have once thoroughly mastered the theory, it is easy to understand the deviations that are made to suit peculiar local conditions.

According, then, to theory, all male peasants in every part of the Empire are inscribed in census-lists, which form the basis of the direct taxation.  These lists are revised at irregular intervals, and all males alive at the time of the “revision,” from the newborn babe to the centenarian, are duly inscribed.  Each Commune has a list of this kind, and pays to the Government an annual sum proportionate to the number of names which the list contains, or, in popular language, according to the number of “revision souls.”  During the intervals between the revisions the financial authorities take no notice of the births and deaths.  A Commune which has a hundred male members at the time of the revision may have in a few years considerably more or considerably less than that number, but it has to pay taxes for a hundred members all the same until a new revision is made for the whole Empire.

Now in Russia, so far at least as the rural population is concerned, the payment of taxes is inseparably connected with the possession of land.  Every peasant who pays taxes is supposed to have a share of the land belonging to the Commune.  If the Communal revision lists contain a hundred names, the Communal land ought to be divided into a hundred shares, and each “revision soul” should enjoy his share in return for the taxes which he pays.