Colonel V. A. Pashkov and the Late Nineteenth-Century Protestant Movement in Russia, Jan M. Surer, 1999

ar after the loan application cited above, Pashkov forgave the debt of the Makaleika peasants and reverted to the original amount for the loan. In the case of the remaining two villages, if the Bank were still to refuse, he would not 38 PP 2/l/d/104. 39 PP 2/l/d/117. 40 Letter to Mr. Owen, 12/24 May 1888, PP 2/l/d/131. 58 sell the land at all until the debt as of 1 January 1887 had been paid. Furthermore, he would not permit these peasants even to rent the land in future "because they become quite impudent about not recognizing their dues and refusing to pay what they owe." 41 Unless they paid the debt, rent in advance would be required for the land's use. I prefer even letting the land rest, than allowing them to go on without paying; please tell them about my decision and have it carried out strictly. It is only doing them harm allowing them to go on in that way. 42 Pashkov thus attempted to combine humanitarian concern for the peasants with an effort to see that they met their obligations. He believed that some strictness was in the peasants' interests, lest they be "allow[ed]...to run further into debt." 43 It is also not clear whether the peasants were slow in paying their rent because of poverty or because of unwillingness, as Pashkov believed. 44 Regarding this potential loss of income, he noted in a letter to his son early in 1888, with perhaps a hint of Tolstoyan compunction: "Or, if the peasants' position is actually difficult—it will happen that [we] do not recover this money at all. Perhaps so much the 41 Letter to Mr. Owen, 13/25 December 1888, PP 2/l/d/180. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 "A refusal or reluctance to pay" rather than poverty may have been the reason for peasant tax arrears in the late nineteenth century (Roger Munting, "Economic Change and the Russian Gentry, 1861-1914," in L. Edmondson and P. Waldron, eds.. Economy and Society in Russia and the Soviet Union. 1860-1930 . St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992, p. 38). There may then be some justification in Pashkov's claim. 59 better—as much for us as for them—we will spend less on ourselves! So much [at least] won over the enemy [ Pozhalui tak i luchshe . kak dlya nikh—tak i dlya nas—men' she budem tratit' na sebya! Autant de gagne"sur l / ennemi ]." Pashkov as a landowner diverged from the status quo of the time in content if not in form. That is, he did show a new concern for his peasants and employees, but, unlike Tolstoy, he seems not to have questioned the basic economic arrangements under which both he and they lived. He appears to have remained very much the gentry magnate, balanced between the old landed order and modern industrial capitalism. He tried to make his lands as profitable as possible, and instead of being a, mere absentee landlord concerned himself actively in the management of his concerns. Heier's description of Pashkovism as "a force similar to Christian socialism, or Tolstoy