THIRD DAY
TAXES
Besides my ordinary visitors and applicants, there are to-day some special ones. The first is a childless old peasant who is ending his life in great poverty. The second is a poor woman with a crowd of children. The third is, I believe, a well-to-do peasant.
All three have come from our village, and all have come about the same business. The taxes are being collected before the New Year, and the old man's samovár, the woman's only sheep, and one of the well-to-do peasant's cows, have been noted down for seizure in case of non-payment. They all ask me to defend them or assist them, or to do both.
The well-to-do peasant, a tall, handsome, elderly man, is the first to speak. He tells me that the Village Elder came, noted down the cow, and demands twenty-seven roubles. This levy is for the obligatory Grain Reserve Fund, and ought not, the peasant thinks, to be collected at this time of year. I know nothing about it, and tell him that I will inquire in the District Government Office, and will let him know whether the payment of the tax can be postponed or not.
The second to speak is the old man whose samovár has been noted. The small, thin, weakly, poorly clad man relates, with pathetic grief and bewilderment, how they came, took his samovár, and demanded three roubles and seventy copecks of him, which he has not got and can't get.
I ask him what the tax is for.
"Some kind of Government tax.... Who can tell what it is? Where am I and my old woman to get the money? As it is, we hardly manage to live!... What kind of laws are these? Have pity on our old age, and help us somehow!"
I promise to inquire, and to do what I can, and I turn to the woman. She is thin and worn-out. I know her, and know that her husband is a drunkard, and that she has five children.
"They have seized my sheep! They come and say: 'Pay the money!' 'My husband is away, working,' I say. 'Pay up!' say they. But where am I to find it? I only had one sheep, and they are taking it!" And she begins to cry.
I promise to find out, and to help her if I can. First, I go to the Village Elder, to find out what the taxes are, and why they are collecting them so rigorously.
In the village street, two other petitioners stop me. Their husbands are away at work. One asks me to buy some of her home-woven linen, and offers it for two roubles. "Because they have seized my hens! I had just reared them, and live by selling the eggs. Do buy it; it is good linen! I would not let it go for three roubles if I were not in great need!"
I send her away, promising to consider matters when I return—perhaps I may be able to arrange about the tax.
Before I reach the Elder's house, a woman comes to meet me: a quick-eyed, black-eyed ex-pupil of mine—ólga, now already an old woman. She is in the same plight: they have seized her calf.
I come to the Elder. He is a strong, intelligent-looking peasant, with a grizzly beard. He comes out into the street to me. I ask him what taxes are being collected, and why so rigorously. He replies that he has had very strict orders to get in all arrears before the New Year.
"Have you had orders to confiscate samovárs and cattle?"
"Of course!" replies the Village Elder, shrugging his shoulders. "The taxes must be paid.... Take Abakoúmof now, for instance," said he, referring to the well-to-do peasant whose cow had been taken in payment of some Grain Reserve Fund. "His son is an isvóstchik: they have three horses. Why shouldn't he pay? He's always trying to get out of it."
"Well, suppose it so in his case," say I; "but how about those who are really poor?" And I name the old man whose samovár they are taking.
"Yes; they really are poor, and have nothing to pay with. But just as if such things get considered up there!"
I name the woman whose sheep was taken. The Elder is sorry for her too, but, as if excusing himself, explains that he must obey orders.
I inquire how long he has been an Elder, and what pay he gets.
"How much do I get?" he says, replying not to the question I ask, but to the question in my mind, which he guesses namely, why he takes part in such proceedings. "Well, I do want to resign! We get thirty roubles a month, but are obliged to do things that are wrong."
"Well, and will they really confiscate the samovárs and sheep and fowls?" I ask.
"Why, of course! We are bound to take them, and the District Government will arrange for their sale."
"And will the things be sold?"
"The folk will manage to pay up somehow."
I go to the woman who came to me about her sheep. Her hut is tiny, and in the passage outside is her only sheep, which is to go to support the Imperial Budget. Seeing me, she, a nervous woman worn out by want and overwork, begins to talk excitedly and rapidly, as peasant women do.
"See how I live! They're taking my last sheep, and I myself and these brats are barely alive!" She points up at the bunks and the oven-top, where her children are. "Come down!... Now then, don't be frightened!... There now, how's one to keep oneself and them naked brats?"
The brats, almost literally naked, with nothing on but tattered shirts—not even any trousers—climb down from the oven and surround their mother.
The same day I go to the District Office, to make inquiries about this way of exacting taxation, which is new to me.
The District Elder is not in. He will be back soon. In the Office several persons are standing behind the grating, also waiting to see him.
I ask them who they are, and what they have come about. Two of them have come to get passports, in order to be able to go out to work at a distance. They have brought money to pay for the passports. Another has come to get a copy of the District Court's decision rejecting his petition that the homestead—where he has lived and worked for twenty-three years, and which has belonged to his uncle, who adopted him,—now that his uncle and aunt are dead, should not be taken from him by his uncle's granddaughter. She, being the direct heiress, and taking advantage of the law of the 9th November, is selling the freehold of the land and homestead on which the petitioner lived. His petition has been rejected, but he cannot believe that this is the law, and wants to appeal to some higher Court—though he does not know what Court. I explain that there is such a law, and this provokes disapproval, amounting to perplexity and incredulity, among all those who are present.
Hardly have I finished talking with this man, when a tall peasant with a stern, severe face asks me for an explanation of his affairs. The business he has come about is this: he and his fellow villagers have, from time immemorial, been getting iron ore from their land; and now a decree has been published prohibiting this. "Not dig on one's own land? What laws are these? We only live by digging the iron! We have been trying for more than a month, and can't get anything settled. We don't know what to think of it; they'll ruin us completely, and that will be the end of the matter!"
I can say nothing comforting to this man, and turn to the Elder—who has just come back—to inquire about the vigorous measures which are being taken to exact payment of arrears of taxation in our village. I ask under what clauses of the Act the taxes are being levied. The Elder tells me that there are seven different kinds of rates and taxes, the arrears of all of which are now being collected from the peasants: (1) the Imperial Taxes, (2) the Local Government Taxes, (3) the Insurance Taxes, (4) the arrears of Former Grain Reserve Funds, (5) New Grain Reserve Funds in lieu of contributions in kind, (6) Communal and District Taxes, and (7) Village Taxes.
The District Elder tells me, as the Village Elder had done, that the taxes were being collected with special rigour by order of the higher authorities. He admits that it is no easy task to collect the taxes from the poor, but he shows less sympathy than the Village Elder did. He does not venture to censure the authorities; and, above all, he has hardly any doubt of the usefulness of his office, or of the rightness of taking part in such activity.
"One can't, after all, encourage...."
Soon after, I had occasion to talk about these things with a Zémsky Natchálnik. He had very little compassion for the hard lot of the poverty-stricken folk whom he scarcely ever saw, and just as little doubt of the morality and lawfulness of his activity. In his conversation with me he admitted that, on the whole, it would be pleasanter not to serve at all; but he considered himself a useful functionary, because other men in his place would do even worse things. "And once one is living in the country, why not take the salary, small as it is, of a Zémsky Natchálnik?"
The views of a Governor on the collection of taxes necessary to meet the needs of those who are occupied in arranging for the nation's welfare, were entirely free from any considerations as to samovárs, sheep, homespun linen, or calves taken from the poorest inhabitants of the villages; and he had not the slightest doubt as to the usefulness of his activity.
And finally, the Ministers and those who are busy managing the liquor traffic, those who are occupied in teaching men to kill one another, and those who are engaged in condemning people to exile, to prison, to penal servitude, or to the gallows—all the Ministers and their assistants are quite convinced that samovárs and sheep and linen and calves taken from beggars, are put to their best use in producing vódka (which poisons the people), weapons for killing men, the erection of gaols and lock-ups, and, among other things, in paying to them and to their assistants the salaries they require to furnish drawing-rooms, to buy dresses for their wives, and for journeys and amusements which they undertake as relaxations after fulfilling their arduous labours for the welfare of the coarse and ungrateful masses.