s
of peace and war, or to elect magistrates, and sometimes the bishop, or
even the prince. The prince had to swear to carry out the ancient laws
of the republic and not attempt to lay taxes on the citizens or to
interfere with their trade. They made him gifts, but paid him no taxes.
They decided how many hours he should give to pleasure and how many to
business; and they expelled some of their princes who thought themselves
beyond the power of the laws.

It seems strange that the absolute Russia of to-day should then have
possessed one of the freest of the cities of Europe. Novgorod was not
only a city, it was a state. The provinces far and wide around were
subject to it, and governed by its prince, who had in them an authority
much greater than he possessed over the proud civic merchants and money
lords.

In the south, on the contrary, lay the great imperial city of Kief, the
capital of the realm, and the seat of a government as arbitrary as that
of Novgorod was free. Here dwelt the grand prince as an irresponsible
autocrat, making his will the law, and forcing all the provinces, even
haughty Novgorod, to pay a tax which bore the slavish title of tribute.
Here none could vote, no assembly of citizens ever met, and the only
restraint on the prince was that of his warlike and turbulent nobles,
who often forced him to yield to their wishes. The government was a
drifting rather than a settled one. It had no anchors out, but was moved
about at the whim of the prince and his unruly lords.

Under these two forms of government lay still a third. Rural Russia was
organized on a democratic principle which still prevails throughout that
broad land. This is the principle of the Mir, or village community,
which most of the people of the earth once possessed, but which has
everywhere passed away except in Russia and India. It is the principle
of the commune, of public instead of private property. The land of a
Russian village belongs to the people as a whole, not to individuals. It
is divided up among them for tillage, but no man can claim the fields
he tills as his own, and for thousands of years what is known as
communism has prevailed on Russian soil.

The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet
and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a
council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its
confines, one of them being the division of the land. Thus at bottom
Ru