Renewal
The Hutterites had abandoned community of goods for the second time in 1819. They still lived in and around the settlement of Radichev, sharing some of the buildings and some of the land, but as the population grow, it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to support themselves financially with the portion of land that they had. They approached the Russian government to allow them to add to their land, but were denied. Then Johannes Cornies, a Mennonite government employee, stepped up to the plate for them.
With Cornies’ help, the entire colony, consisting of 69 families, moved over 400 miles to a new location, Huttertal, near the Molotschna Mennonite settlement.
Cornies helped the Hutterites get established with farming, school, and economic practices. Ten years later, in 1852, they built another bruderhof called Johannesruh, in honor of Johannes Cornies. These settlements were largely modeled after Mennonite villages, but the Hutterites still retained their own ministers, sermon, language and other traditions.
The colonies still didn’t practice community of goods, but that was about to change. Michael Waldner was one of the ministers at that time. He experienced a dream where angels instructed him to set up a community after the pattern of Jesus and his disciples.
Later he met with Jakob Hofer, another preacher, and they spent many hours praying about what to do. After extensive soul-searching, they realized the answer: they would re-establish community of goods. So in 1859, community of goods began again, 40 years after it had been abandoned.
Michael Waldner was a blacksmith, so he and his followers, the people who accepted community of goods, were known as the “Schmiedeleut.” The next year, Darius Walter also established communal living and they lived on the other end of the community. They were known as the “Dariusleut. The group who hadn’t accepted community of goods lived in the middle. Both groups immigrated to the US, within a few years of each other, in the mid 1870s.