The Russian papers have published a multitude of letters from their correspondents telling of the loss of some 50% of the horses owned by the peasants. This means the complete ruin of the weak groups of the village, and the further concentration of the communal land into the hands of the strong, who alone survived as the farming class.[189] The class of small farmers in Russia is evolving into a peasant _bourgeoisie_ similar to the French peasantry after the great Revolution, or to the American small employing farmers. The transitional groups of half farmers, half laborers, by whom the major part of the landlords’ estates were formerly cultivated, have sunk through the famine into the proletarian class. The laborer having become a proletarian, it is by proletarian labor that the estates must be tilled, and agriculture upon a large scale becomes a regular capitalistic pursuit.[190] The nobility with its estates under mortgage can not possibly afford the capital needed.[191] The land is destined to be divided between the large capitalist and the small farmer--the _homo novus_ of the village.[192] Thus the present famine must be considered as a genuine turning-point in the economic history of Russia. Family co-operation, village community, nobility, and natural economy--such was the economic constitution of Russia in the past. The Russia of the days to come will have for its basis a peasant _bourgeoisie_, a rural proletariat, and capitalistic agriculture.[193] APPENDICES. STATISTICAL TABLES. TABLE I.--DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AMONG THE SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE PEASANT POPULATION.