Obshchina (literally: "commune") were peasant communities, as opposed to individual farmsteads, or khutors, in Imperial Russia. The term derives from the word общий, obshchiy (common). This institution was effectively destroyed by the Stolypin agrarian reforms (1906–1914), the Russian Revolution and subsequent collectivization of the USSR. Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from ob… (More on Obshchina)