‘TALKA’ (Voluntary unpaid work performed collectively) is a form of work o rganization based on mutual help from neighbours and working in return. The area where this form of assistance is spread over is rather large. This form of work is common not only to Lithuanians, (in Lithuanian it is called ‘TALKA’), but also in Russia and Ukraine (where it is called ‘TOLOKA’) in Byelorussia (‘TALAKA’), in Poland (‘TŁOKA’ ). However, in each nation it has its own peculiarities. The basic purpose of this kind of assistance is to do urgent work of a greater volume, in which case the peasant and his family members are not sufficient or the nature of the work demands a greater number of farm-hands. Therefore ‘talka’ directly relates to the development of peasant farming. As far back as the end of the 19th century, as the use of threshers spread throughout the Lithuanian villages and they needed to be worked by quite a number of hands, the assistance while threshing ( talka) which earlier was not considered a prominent tradition, became a popular practice, especially on medium or large farms that were under an obligation to thresh a large quantity of corn (grain). So ‘Talka’ is not only the remnant of the primitive society work tradition, but also the outcome of the property and social differentiation among peasants. At the end of the 19th century, as large peasant farms were taking shape, the property differentiation which was becoming more obvious brought in new traits to ‘TALKA’. According to the way it was organized, 2 types of the assistance work (Talka) could be segregated. First of all Work-in-Return Assistance ( ) came to flourish. (The Russians used to call this kind of work just ‘Work in Return’ ( Z ELENIN 1991). (Paying by Work). This was the kind of assistance which some peasants came to in the hope of receiving support for themselves (work in return), while others used to work off their debts; i.e. for the seed, pasturing, mea dows, etc. After WW1, however, besides the peasants, hired hands used to participate in the ‘Talka’. This form of assistance is more typical of harvest time, time of fertili zing fields, hay-making and forest care. This principle of organizing ‘Talka’ became practiced among peasants through the manor, where the “ work-in-return ” practice in the post-serfdom period village (serfdom in Lithuania went out of practice in the 7th decade of the 19th century) was a remnant of the Serfdom Law, therefore “ workin-return ” practice in the manors might be classified as a modification of the feudal