A question to Putin about serfdom and the farming troubles of Konstantin Levin

A question to Putin about the return of serfdom reminded me of my beloved Konstantin Levin, who discovered that the feeding racks were broken and had not been mended since winter. And the threshing machine was broken too, for the muzhiks simply did not like the contraption. And the carpenter who was supposed to repair the threshing machine was mending harrows, broken since Shrovetide. Then the steward reported that clover had been sown not on 20 desyatinas, as Levin had wanted, but on only 6. The oats, not turned over in good time, had sprouted before their time. When clover is sown, the seed is not crumbled, and it will not come up as it should. And all his other plans and reckonings for the farm came to nothing, refused to add up: «...the same eternal slovenliness of farming was repeating itself, against which he had fought for so many years with all his might». And every new steward, and every muzhik, said the same thing: whatever you do, however hard you try, it will all come out «as God wills». Levin found all this vexing, and he understood that the muzhiks were not yet ready for freedom, and that every so often, not out of malice but deliberately all the same, they spoiled the work, though they swore they were doing their best «as for their own father».