“How Much Land Does a Man Need?” grapples with a revolutionary era in Russian history. For more than two centuries, serfdom served as the prevailing economic relationship between peasants and the upper class. Serfs were unfree people, and they had limited rights and economic opportunities. Serfs could be bought and sold, but only with the land to which they were attached. As mentioned in the About section, Tolstoy published "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" roughly 25 years after Emperor Alexander II emancipated over 20 million serfs, which fundamentally altered Russia's economic system. While technically free, the former serfs still endured structural inequalities after the emancipation reform of 1861. Their access to land was severely limited, and the serfs who managed to purchase pieces of land were still beholden to powerful, often exploitative large landowners.
Tolstoy expressed ambivalence toward emancipation, writing, "Now is not the time to think about historical fairness and the advantages of one's social class. We need to save the whole building from the fire that is about to engulf it at any minute. To me it's clear that the landowners are now facing the following question: your land or your life" (quoted in Hruska 628).
As Anne Hruska notes in "Love and Slavery: Serfdom, Emancipation, and Family in Tolstoy's Fiction," Tolstoy deemed emancipation as necessary and essential, but he also claimed that the reform gave “peasants freedom without economic justice, releasing them from bondage without giving them the land they considered morally theirs. As a consequence, the building of Russian society was in danger of complete destruction by the fire of revolution" (Hruska 628). Tolstoy uses Pahom’s arc in "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" to consider the ramifications of emancipation, which included corruptive and dehumanizing social hierarchies.
While owning small patches of land in their commune, Pahom and his fellow peasants are not entirely self-sufficient and independent. The old soldier still imposes ruthless fines on them, capitalizing on their limited status and cultural capital to generate more profit for himself and the female landowner. When Pahom manages to purchase a significant piece of property, he mirrors the soldiers’ behaviors and also fines peasants for minor transgressions, thus perpetuating a vicious cycle of class disparity. Through this, Tolstoy shows the contradictions embedded in a post-emancipation Russian society: legal equality does not always equate to justice and equity.
