150 The Imperial Century. 1725-1825whether peasants or landowners, had every interest in trying to pass off men
whose age or physical condition rendered them unsuitable for service. They
also used the levy as a safety valve to rid themselves of villagers whose conduct
they found objectionable. These would often be individuals who h;icl offrndl'.'d
against the laws of Church or state and were consequently branded as 'trouble-
makers'. With our twentieth-century perspective we are prone to label such
men automatically as social rebels, and certainly some of them were; but they
might simply be unfortunates reduced to indigence by poor harvests or some
catastrophe such as their homestead catching fire.
Undoubtedly the recruitment system helped to make many village com-
munities instruments of a clique of powerful householders, and so to subvert
its 'democratic' and egalitarian features. Yet it is not as certain as Aleksandrov
contends that the recruits despatched were increasingly drawn from the poorer
strata of the rural population.^30 The authorities at every level pursued the
illusory goal of an absolutely fair distribution of the load between potential
donors. This task was complicated inter alia by the coexistence within each
conscription unit of donors belonging to different socio-economic categories.
Let us suppose that one recruit was to be provided for every 100 male souls.
Those landowners or communities with precisely that number, or an exact
multiple thereof, had an easy task. But those with a fraction of it had to com-
bine their holdings notionally with the 'surplus' of those with more than such a
round number. This operation was called the skladka (literally, 'putting
together').^31 The law also laid down that if in any unit there was an owner with
approximately two-thirds of the norm (in this case 70 souls) he was to be the
donor and all other owners in his notional sub-unit were to compensate him in
cash for their shares, the total cost of providing a recruit being fixed separately
for each levy. The understanding here seems to have been that the obligation
would rotate among the donors in each unit; but since the unit did not cover
a fixed geographical area, but varied with each levy,^32 this aim was unrealiz-
able. At first only the poorest landowners were permitted to make their own
arrangements by mutual agreement, which meant that they drew lots, but later
this provision as we know was extended.
Another complication arose from the patchwork distribution of holdings.
What was to be done where a village was owned jointly by several individuals,
or where a proprietor held land in several parts of a province or in several
provinces? These problems had caused headaches among officials of the
Razryad, and their eighteenth-century successors found them almost equally
JO Ibid., pp. 271-3. The very e"istence of such strata is a contentious matter, since the social
pattern of the Russian village was often based on a rotation between 'rich' and 'poor' households
in positions of responsibility and influence. We do not yet know precisely why particular land-
owners or communes changed the method of raising recruits, or indeed whether their decisions
were implemented in practice.
JI First defined in PSZ ix. 6490 (24 Sept. 1733), §§ 2-6; cf. xiv. !0326 (21 Nov. 1754), §§ 4-6.
l2 Legally until 1785, but in practice often thereafter as well.