Obshchina
The Russian peasant commune (obshchina) was a traditional self-governing village institution that managed collective land use, crop allocation, and tax liability among peasant households. Existing for centuries, it formed the basis of rural organization until it was dismantled by Soviet collectivization in the 1930s.
Further explanation
The Russian peasant commune (obshchina) was a village organization that collectively determined crop rotation and redistributed land among member households based on family size and agricultural capacity. Originating by at least the 16th century, the commune was later utilized by the Tsarist state as a mechanism for enforcing collective tax liability and issuing internal travel permits.
In 1906, the Tsarist government launched the Stolypin agrarian reforms to dismantle the commune in favor of individual private land ownership, leading to increased class differentiation among the peasantry. Following the 1917 Revolution, communal land redistribution temporarily resurged as peasants seized private estates, and the institution influenced early rural administration. However, the traditional commune was permanently eliminated during the late 1920s and 1930s, when the Soviet government replaced individual and communal holdings with state-controlled collective farms (kolkhozy).