The Hutterites are one of a cluster of German-speaking Christian groups known as Anabaptists, along with the Amish and the Mennonites. What has set the Hutterites apart from other Christians and other Anabaptists as well is that they live in tightly organized rural communities and have all goods in common.
Nothing is owned by individuals.
If this alone did not create enough tension in their relationships with their neighbors and governments, their belief that they should not take up arms for any reason has created troubles for them throughout their history. The Hutterites had their beginnings in 1528 in Switzerland, early in the protestant reformation. Persecutions, some early ones grisly, later with discriminatory laws, have kept them moving, from Moravia to Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Russia, and finally to the United States and Canada. It is because of their sojourn in the Ukraine, where they lived not far from the Mennonite communities, that they are a part of the story of the Germans from Russia. They are objects of great curiosity today.