Conclusion

In Molochna, Orthodox state peasants, like Mennonites, shifted to grow­ing grain in the 1840s. Unlike Mennonites, however, their actions were driven by land shortages rather than changing market demand.

The decisions taken by Orthodox peasants in Molochna in the 1830s and 1840s are fully consistent with James C. Scott’s moral economy paradigm. Driven by the spectre of famine, peasants made the avoid­ance of dearth their first priority, implementing a policy that placed subsistence ahead of wealth. This begs the question of why Mennonites, who were, after all, themselves peasants - at least they had been when they arrived in Molochna - took such a sharply different path. The moral economy paradigm seems to possess little utility in answering this question.

In looking elsewhere for answers, the differing roles played by the two communities in allocating land must be reiterated. Prior to repartition Orthodox state peasants had much less collective control over their own land than did colonists, who controlled their own sur­plus lands, and consequently developed a system of self-administration over community resources. Orthodox state peasants were entirely de­pendent on the state to grant new land as their population grew. For colonists, the surplus land system provided an impetus to establish an internal administrative system and lent legitimacy to the participants in that system. Although Mennonite society was faced with many internal political disputes about who would control the system of internal ad­ministration of common resources, there was never any doubt that it would be Mennonites themselves who ultimately held the reins of con­trol. Even when Mennonite leaders sought Guardianship Committee support against their political opponents they did not invite direct state participation in deciding internal matters, but rather sought the au­thority to make community decisions themselves. Orthodox peasants, meanwhile, lacked any such internal administrative system, so when problems arose they were constrained to invite outside assistance.

As a consequence there arose in Mennonite society a corporate iden­tity, what is commonly called the ⁴Mennonite commonwealth.’ Menno- nites, whether landless or landed, identified with the commonwealth and accepted, however grudgingly, decisions taken by community lead­ers about how the common good should best be served. The wealth of some was legitimized because it served all, and the poverty of others was made bearable by the promise that the poor would eventually share in the growing wealth of the whole community. Private enterprise blos­somed in the name of communal good.

Orthodox peasants, meanwhile, had no common resources, and con­sequently there was no impetus for the creation of a corporate identity. When demographic pressures made land scarce they had no choice but to turn to the state, for they lacked any legitimate system to reallocate resources by themselves. Although their rejection of most of Bauman’s recommendations reveals their desire to maintain independence from the state, when they invited state intervention they surrendered a criti­cal element of their independence. Ironically, the peasants’ lack of a corporate identity led to the rejection of private enterprise and the arbitrary outside imposition of how communal resources were to be shared.