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22

(1897) [MARC] Author: Jonas Jonsson Stadling Translator: Will Reason With: Gerda Tirén, Johan Tirén - Tema: Russia
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the two districts just mentioned were compelled to sell all their
cattle and sheep. There was nothing left to pawn, so the
community began to borrow, on security of the communal land;
according to figures given in that year, 56 communer had
already so pledged their land, and 107 were in debt to kulacks
and merchants.

In the district of Bugulminsk, the population is largely
composed of Tatars, Mordvins, and other non-Russian peoples.
The kulacks have taken advantage of the greater ignorance of
business matters to exact many times the amount really
due. For example, a man borrowed 155 roubles for a year.
He could not pay up promptly, so his creditor seized his barn,
all his straw-thatched outhouses, one hectare of his crops, his
gate, and a quantity of his fencing.

Another, a Tatar, had borrowed 291.50 roubles, and when
he could not pay, lost his dwelling-house, all his outhouses, his
horse, his cupboard, his samovar, and his clock.

Two peasants borrowed twenty-eight roubles, and had
in return to reap rye for two days with two men, to plough
the land with their own horses for fifteen days in the
spring-sowing, and to plough the fallow land also for fifteen days.

In another case three peasants borrowed twenty-seven
roubles from a nun, from March 2 to October 11, on condition
that failure to pay, should forfeit all their property,
beasts, implements, bees, and all their clothes, and that no
question was to be raised before the authorities about it.

These are simply a few instances taken here and there as
examples of a general practice. I. M. Krasnopjorov gives
the following figures as the result of his investigations. These
are the latest we have been able to get, but by no means
represent the state of things in quite recent years, when
matters have become, necessarily, much worse. It is
understood that these figures are in connection with this forced
borrowing.
The peasants lose by forced sale        of grain......        21per cent.
„        „ „        purchase        „......        97
„        „ piecework on the land...        60
„        „ harvest work......        50
„        „ daily labour ... ......        39

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