confined, as in the case of the old Teutonic kingship, to the members of
a particular family. In the Russian village, on the other hand, the
government is conducted by an assembly at which every head of a
household is expected to be present and vote on all matters of public
concern. This assembly elects the Village Elder, or chief executive
officer, the tax-collector, the watchman, and the communal herd-boy; it
directs the allotment of the arable land; and in general matters of
local legislation its power is as great as that of the New England
town-meeting,--in some respects perhaps even greater, since the precise
extent of its powers has never been determined by legislation, and
(according to Mr. Wallace) "there is no means of appealing against its
decisions." To those who are in the habit of regarding Russia simply as
a despotically-governed country, such a statement may seem surprising.
To those who, because the Russian government is called a bureaucracy,
have been led to think of it as analogous to the government of France
under the Old Régime, it may seem incredible that the decisions of a
village-assembly should not admit of appeal to a higher authority. But
in point of fact, no two despotic governments could be less alike than
that of modern Russia and that of France under the Old Régime. The
Russian government is autocratic inasmuch as over the larger part of the
country it has simply succeeded to the position of the Mongolian khans
who from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century held the Russian people
in subjection. This Mongolian government was--to use a happy distinction
suggested by Sir Henry Maine--a tax-taking despotism, not a legislative
despotism. The conquerors exacted tribute, but did not interfere with
the laws and customs of the subject people. When the Russians drove out
the Mongols they exchanged a despotism which they hated for one in
which they felt a national pride, but in one curious respect the
position of the people with reference to their rulers has remained the
same. The imperial government exacts from each village-community a tax