Tsarist Russia 709

Peasants hailing Tsar Alexander II after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.

tem remained essentially in place. But serfs then received land through the
commune—the mir—which was administered by male heads of house­
hold. The state compensated nobles for their land, and peasants had to
repay the state through annual redemption payments. Yet nobles lost in the
emancipation, as in many cases they received bonds of little value, as well
as losing the value of the serfs. Peasants were no longer dependent upon
the whims of landlord justice. Yet many peasants, who had wanted com­
plete and immediate freedom without compensation (“We are yours,” went
an old serf proverb, “but the land is ours.”) were disappointed by the terms
of their freedom. Furthermore, as the villages were collectively responsible
for land redemption payments and taxes (although the lords’ household
serfs were freed without land and owed no payments), former serfs were
rather like hostages to their own villages. Instead of owing labor to the
lords, they now owed taxes to the state, which would be collected by the
communes. They were dependent upon the village patriarchs for permis­
sion to go find work elsewhere. Peasants flocked to the cities, which grew
by leaps and bounds.
In tsarist Russia, the serfs were freed practically without bloodshed, while
in the United States the slaves found freedom only after one of the most
violent struggles—the Civil War (1861 — 1865)—of the nineteenth century.
Unlike the southern landed elite in the United States, who went to war in