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 carefully defined.  Such a document was never heard of in Russian Village Communes, except those belonging to the Imperial Domains, and the special legislation which formerly regulated their affairs was repealed at the time of the Emancipation.  At the present day the Constitution of all the Village Communes is of the English type—­a body of unwritten, traditional conceptions, which have grown up and modified themselves under the influence of ever-changing practical necessity.  No doubt certain definitions of the functions and mutual relations of the Communal authorities might be extracted from the Emancipation Law and subsequent official documents, but as a rule neither the Village Elder nor the members