<P> The average allotment in Kherson was only 0.90 - acre (3,600 m), and for allotments from 2.9 to 5.8 acres (23,000 m) the peasants pay 5 to 10 rubles of redemption tax . The state peasants were better off, but still they were emigrating in masses . It was only in the steppe governments that the situation was more hopeful . In Ukraine, where the allotments were personal (the mir existing only among state peasants), the state of affairs does not differ for the better, on account of the high redemption taxes . In the western provinces, where the land was valued cheaper and the allotments somewhat increased after the Polish insurrection, the general situation was better . Finally, in the Baltic provinces nearly all the land belonged to the German landlords, who either farmed the land themselves, with hired laborers, or let it in small farms . Only one quarter of the peasants were farmers; the remainder were mere laborers . </P> <P> The situation of the former serf - proprietors was also unsatisfactory . Accustomed to the use of compulsory labor, they failed to adapt to the new conditions . The millions of rubles of redemption money received from the crown was spent without any real or lasting agricultural improvements having been effected . The forests were sold, and the only prosperous landlords were those who exacted rack - rents for the land without which the peasants could not live upon their allotments . During the years 1861 to 1892 the land owned by the nobles decreased 30%, or from 210,000,000 to 150,000,000 acres (610,000 km); during the following four years an additional 2,119,500 acres (8,577 km) were sold; and since then the sales went on at an accelerated rate, until in 1903 alone close to 2,000,000 acres (8,000 km) passed out of their hands . On the other hand, since 1861, and more especially since 1882, when the Peasant Land Bank was founded for making advances to peasants who were desirous of purchasing land, the former serfs, or rather their descendants, had between 1883 and 1904 bought about 19,500,000 acres (78,900 km) from their former masters . There was an increase of wealth among the few, but along with this a general impoverishment of the mass of the people, and the peculiar institution of the mir--framed on the principle of community of ownership and occupation of the land--, the effect was not conducive to the growth of individual effort . In November 1906, however, the emperor Nicholas II promulgated a provisional order permitting the peasants to become freeholders of allotments made at the time of emancipation, all redemption dues being remitted . This measure, which was endorsed by the third Duma in an act passed on 21 December 1908, is calculated to have far - reaching and profound effects on the rural economy of Russia . Thirteen years previously the government had endeavored to secure greater fixity and permanence of tenure by providing that at least twelve years must elapse between every two redistributions of the land belonging to a mir amongst those entitled to share in it . The order of November 1906 had provided that the various strips of land held by each peasant should be merged into a single holding; the Duma, however, on the advice of the government, left this to the future, as an ideal that could only gradually be realized . </P> <P> Censorship was heavy - handed until the reign of Alexander II, but it never went away . Newspapers were strictly limited in what they could publish, as intellectuals favored literary magazines for their publishing outlets . Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for example, ridiculed the St. Petersburg newspapers, such as Golos and Peterburgskii Listok, which he accused of publishing trifles and distracting readers from the pressing social concerns of contemporary Russia through their obsession with spectacle and European popular culture . </P>

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