All Russian writers draw a kindly and charming picture of the _mir_, the rude village council, in which the heads of families have for ages managed their common land, distributed their taxes, and settled all the burning problems of the hamlet with remarkable freedom, fairness, and mutual respect. They meet together on some open space--perhaps in front of the tavern, which is itself one of their common possessions; they beat out their question there till they are unanimous; for the _mir_ will know nothing of decision by majorities--the will of the _mir_ is believed to be the will of God Himself, and it must be no divided counsel. They argue sometimes long and keenly, and, as their interest waxes, they will raise many voices at once, or perhaps break up into separate groups, each discussing the subject apart; but presently, out of all the apparent disorder, the acceptable decision is somehow found, and peace reigns again in the village street. In these meetings they have the deepest feeling and habit of freedom; and even when a political question arises affecting their interests--a question of taxes or of administration--they make no scruple to speak in the plainest terms of the Government and the officials, and they are never interfered with. "Nobody but God," they say, "dare judge the _mir_," and the Czar, at any rate, respects the tradition. That rude assembly is the only free institution in Russia. Even revolutionary manifestoes have been publicly read at its meetings, and socialist addresses publicly delivered. And this instinctive spirit of freedom is attended there with the instinctive spirit of equality. A recent Russian writer observes that a Russian peasant would be quite unable to understand the sort of respect the English labourer shows to a gentleman. With its freedom, its equality, its strong family sentiment, its common property, its self-government, the _mir_ is really the social democratic republic political philosophers have projected, and a Russian who dislikes the State and loves the _mir_ is, without more ado, a social revolutionist of the anarchist type. The favourite ideal among Russian revolutionists for the last fifty years has accordingly all along been the anarchist ideal of a free federation of local industrial communities without any separate political organization; for the anarchist ideal is natural to the Russian situation.