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Obshchina (literally: "commune") were peasant communities, as opposed to individual farmsteads, or khutor
Khutor

Khutor or hutor is usually taken to refer to a single-smallholding rural settlement of Eastern Europe. The word originated in Ukraine, but later came to be applied to farmsteads in Russia and Kazakhstan....
s, in Imperial Russia. The term derives from the word ?????, obshchiy (common). This institution was effectively destroyed by the Stolypin agrarian reforms
Stolypin reform

The Stolypin agrarian reforms were a series of changes to Imperial Russia's agricultural sector instituted during the tenure of Pyotr Stolypin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers ....
 (1906–1914), the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union....
 and subsequent collectivization of the USSR.

Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from obshchina, governed at the village level (mir
Mir (social)

File:KorovinS NaMiru.jpgThe Russian language word 'mir' , besides its direct meanings of peace and world P. Smirnovskiy. A Textbook in Russian Grammar....
) by the full assembly of the community (skhod).






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Obshchina (literally: "commune") were peasant communities, as opposed to individual farmsteads, or khutor
Khutor

Khutor or hutor is usually taken to refer to a single-smallholding rural settlement of Eastern Europe. The word originated in Ukraine, but later came to be applied to farmsteads in Russia and Kazakhstan....
s, in Imperial Russia. The term derives from the word ?????, obshchiy (common). This institution was effectively destroyed by the Stolypin agrarian reforms
Stolypin reform

The Stolypin agrarian reforms were a series of changes to Imperial Russia's agricultural sector instituted during the tenure of Pyotr Stolypin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers ....
 (1906–1914), the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union....
 and subsequent collectivization of the USSR.

Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from obshchina, governed at the village level (mir
Mir (social)

File:KorovinS NaMiru.jpgThe Russian language word 'mir' , besides its direct meanings of peace and world P. Smirnovskiy. A Textbook in Russian Grammar....
) by the full assembly of the community (skhod). Among its duties were control and redistribution of the common land and forest (if such existed), levying recruits for military service, and imposing punishments for minor crimes. Obshchina was also held responsible for taxes underpaid by members, as well as for their crimes. This type of share
Share

Share may refer to:* Sharing ; to make joint use of resources , or to "give something away"* Share , a man who writes Urdu poetry* Share , a stock or other security such as a mutual fund...
d responsibility
Responsibility

Responsibility may refer to:* Responsibility assumption, in spirituality and personal growth* Cabinet collective responsibility, a constitutional convention in governments using the Westminster System...
 was known as krugovaya poruka, although the exact meaning of this expression has changed over time.

The nineteenth-century Russian philosophers attached signal importance to obshchina as a unique feature distinguishing Russia from other countries. Alexander Herzen
Alexander Herzen

Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a major Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and he was one of the main fathers of modern agrarian populism ....
, for example, hailed this pre-capitalist
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
 institution as a germ of the future socialist society. His Slavophile
Slavophile

Slavophilia is an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history....
 opponent Aleksey Khomyakov
Aleksey Khomyakov

Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov was a Russian religious poet who co-founded the Slavophile movement along with Ivan Kireevsky, and became one of its most distinguished theoreticians....
 regarded obshchina as symbolic of the spiritual unity and internal co-operation of Russian society and worked out a sophisticated "Philosophy of Obshchina" which he called sobornost
Sobornost

Sobornost .The term was coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them....
.

See also

  • Mir (commune)
    Mir (commune)

    Mir, in Russian, means both peace and world. The exact date of origin of the Russian mir or commune, is unknown. But the communal land ownership of the Mir predated serfdom and survived emancipation and even the Russian Revolution ....
  • Mir (social)
    Mir (social)

    File:KorovinS NaMiru.jpgThe Russian language word 'mir' , besides its direct meanings of peace and world P. Smirnovskiy. A Textbook in Russian Grammar....
  • Kolkhoz
    Kolkhoz

    A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of ????????????? ??????????, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of ????????? ????????? ....
  • Commons