Perilous Journey: The Mennonite Brethren in Russia 1860-1910, John B. Toews, 1988

accumulation here and now seemed more assuring than the vagaries of the world to come. A new hero appeared on the Russian steppes — the man with land and money. Usually he found it easy to transform economic to political power. His performance with its entre- preneurship, productivity and accumulation was a convincing model for a new kind of kingdom building. It became more difficult to distinguish between the two kingdoms. The earthly city demanded a greater say in the building of the heavenly one. Often it hid under the guise of nominal piety by strongly endorsing long-standing patterns associated with worship and congregational life. Though such orthodoxy appeared to uphold traditional religion it was just as easily a demand for conformity in the interests of the Mennonite state. Religious stability and constancy, it was assumed, ensured progress and development. All too frequently the assumption that the City of God would endorse mundane priorities proved correct. In South Russia the European demand for grain generated increased capital inflow. Those with land naturally benefited. Unfortunately, rapid population growth a few decades after settlement not only absorbed reserve lands but ensured a landless class which soon comprised approximately two-thirds of the population. In the Molotschna, population growth in the later 1850s clearly illustrates the problem. As of January 1st, 1856, 23 the settlement (48 villages) numbered 17,516; by 1860 it stood at 20,828; in 1865 it reached 24,235. 24 While the total population still stood at 17,516 the colony listed 2,059 landless families compared to 1,188 with land. Assuming an average family size of five there was only 17 enough land to support a population of 5,940 in a system where indivisible farmsteads were the rule. 25 What kind of pressures existed when the population stood at 20,828 or 24,235? Systematic colonization under the supervision of the mother colony only began in the late 1860s, and even then only under pressure from the Russian government. Since the right to vote was tied to land holding, the emergence of a centralized, more authoritarian leadership was inevitable. The landowning class invariably placed its own members into key positions. Mennonite elders, at times elected on the assumption that their farms made them economically self- sufficient, participated in the growing prosperity of the mid- nineteenth century. Increasingly their interests coincided with the rich and powerful. It had always been assumed that the elder reflected the priorities of the community that elected him. Now, as wealth brought independence, that no longer seemed to be the case. The earliest attempts to centralize ecclesiastical power took place during the 1820s in the Molotschna when the elders of the Ohrloff, Alexanderwohl and Rudnerweide congregations united. They were joined somewhat later by the elders of the Waldheim and Gnadenfeld congregat