Obshchina

The obshchina or "Russian commune" was the ancient landholding system of the Russian peasants. Land was held inalienably by the commune and periodically redistributed in allotments to member households, generally according to the number of adult males in each. In the 19th century, Populists such as Alexander Herzen considered that the natural solidarity and socialist instincts of the the Russian peasants were still in evidence in the obshchinas, and believed that the obshchina could provide the basis for a socialist transformation of the country. Others (eg. the Marxist Plekhanov) thought that the 'obshchina had already been too undermined by commodity production and social differentiation.

Source
Neil Harding, 'Russian commune', in Tom Bottomore, ed., A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, 1983.