Merl S. “I consistently contribute to the assessment of the Soviet economic model” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №1. P. 131-163.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-1-131-163
Annotation
As a part of our traditional “Interviews” we present the selected fragments from the biographical memoirs of Stephan Merl, Professor of the Bielefeld University, a famous researcher of the agrarian economy and policy of the Soviet state. The memoirs were written as answers to the questions formulated by Stephan Merl together with his colleague and friend Alexander Nikulin. The questions set the direction for the biographical reflections as connected with the study of the Russian history and culture, in particular the fate of the Russian village, tragedy of collectivization, and turns of the Soviet agrarian policy. The memoirs reflect the dramatic episodes of the European history in the second half of the 20th century, some of which the author experienced, while others studied in the scientific perspective. Professor Merl’s diligence, deep knowledge of historical sources and research objectivity allowed him to suggest a new interpretation of the events that have become history quite recently or are becoming history now. We present an excerpt from his memoirs which will be published in full in the book series of the Russian Peasant Studies.
Keywords
Russia, Germany, USSR, agriculture, collectivization, agrarian policy, perestroika.
About the author
Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr., 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
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Doktorov B.Z., Nikulin A.M. Teodor Shanin: Peasant Studies and Russia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №3. P. 146-172.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-3-146-172
Annotation
In this interview, Boris Doktorov, a Russian sociologist living in America, a researcher of intellectual biographies and methods of social sciences in the 20th–21st centuries, together with the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian Peasant Studies and Head of the Chayanov Research Center of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Alexander Nikulin, talks about the outstanding British sociologist Teodor Shanin, whose scientific legacy is closely related to the development of an interdisciplinary social science—peasant studies, and who conducted a number of fundamental historical-sociological and economic-sociological studies of rural Russia. The interview considers the basic concepts and milestones in the development of peasant studies as a branch of the historical-sociological knowledge in Russia, analyzes Shanin’s estimates of various aspects of the Russian social-humanitarian thought as related to the study of the peasantry and to the recommendations on alternatives for the development and transformation of peasant worlds, which were suggested by agrarian populists and Marxists, G.V. Plekhanov and V.I. Lenin, A.V. Chayanov and I.V. Stalin. The interview considers the impact of literature and art on descriptions and explanations of the role of the peasantry through the intellectual interests of Teodor Shanin; focuses on his joint activities with his closest colleagues in the study of rural Russia—the outstanding agrarian scientists V.P. Danilov and T.I. Zaslavskaya. Throughout the interview, Shanin’s worldview and moral-ethical principles in the search for humanistic alternatives for the Russian and global rural development are discussed.
Keywords
peasantry, peasant studies, agrarian policy, Teodor Shanin, V.P. Danilov, T.I. Zaslavskaya, village writers, rural Russia
About the authors
Doktorov Boris Z., DSc (Philosophy), Professor, Independet Analyst. 100 Village Lane, Foster City, CA 94404, USA.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Kiselev S.V., Nikulin A.M. “Culture is a factor of labor productivity” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №2. P. 160-176.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-2-160-176
Annotation
In his interview to the Russian Peasant Studies, Sergei Kiselev, the Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, refers to the facts of his biography to provide an extensive overview of the evolution of some important approaches in the Russian and foreign agrarian economic science and politics in the late 20th—early 21st centuries. The interview focuses on the agrarian and economic policy of the perestroika, the creation of the Agrarian Institute headed by the Academician A.A. Nikonov, the interaction of the state regulation of agriculture with emerging market-economy institutions and relations. One of the topics of the interview is the long-term accession of Russia to the WTO as connected with negotiations on various areas of the economy and especially on agriculture, in which Kiselev took part. The interview also describes the studies of foreign agrarian economies, especially of the USA, which were conducted by meetings of Kiselev with American farmers, scientists and businessmen. When describing the current development of the Russian agriculture Kiselev stresses that Russia has reached a plateau of economic indicators, and to increase them the country needs a substantial increase in agricultural labor productivity, which depends not only on the successes of the national economy as a whole, but also on the quality of agricultural science and education, and the most important factor of their successful improvement is culture in the most extensive and deep meaning of the word.
Keywords
agrarian economy, agrarian policy, agricultural education, perestroika, WTO, farming, labor productivity, culture
About the authors
Kiselev Sergei V., DSc (Economics), Professor, Head of the Department of Agroeconomics, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 119992, Moscow, Leninsky Gory, New Building, Faculty of Economics, Room 422.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Merl S. Reassessment of the Soviet agrarian policy in the light of today’s achievements // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №1. P. 45-69.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-1-45-69
Annotation
Obvious successes of Putin’s policy require a reassessment of the Soviet agrarian policy. The article addresses the question of whether the Bolsheviks’ approach was appropriate for the Russian peasantry and considers limitations of the concept “socialist industrialized agriculture’. To assess achievements of the Soviet agriculture the author uses qualitative instead of quantitative criteria: per hectare yields and milk per cow since 1913. They kept to be extremely low which is striking for the agriculture based on large-scale and partly mechanized production. The gap in yields as compared to the neighboring capitalist countries even widened from 1930 to 1991. The strong and steady growth in yields since 2000 does not allow to explain failures of the Soviet agriculture by bad soils, specific climate or natural limitations—the Soviet agrarian policy is to blame. Instead of “revolutionizing”, socialist agriculture did not take part in any significant productivity rise as elsewhere in the world during the “green revolution”. The author argues that the main reason for such a failure was “infantilization” of agricultural producers—peasants, heads of state and collective farms—by a combination of mistrust and scrupulous control. During the Soviet period agricultural producers never were the masters of their fields. The situation became even worse after the planned economy provided agriculture with insufficient and ineffective machinery below Western standards. Although necessary machinery and knowledge of organizing the production were available in the West, in the Soviet Union the mechanization of crop production and animal husbandry was not completed. The article starts with the description of peasants’ interests, behavior und expectations in the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917– 1918; then the author focuses on the foundations of the Soviet agrarian policy suggested by Lenin and Stalin, continues with a short review of different approaches to agriculture developed by Khrushchev, Brezhnev und Gorbachev, and finishes with a summary of the reasons for Putin’s successes paying special attention to the short periods of yields growth—1924–1930, 1953–1958, 1965–1970, and 1986–1991.
Keywords
Socialist agriculture, agrarian policy, industrialized agriculture, infantilization of peasants, class differentiation, V.I. Lenin, J.V. Stalin, N.S. Khrushchev, L.I. Brezhnev, M.S. Gorbachev, V.V. Putin.
About the author
Merl Stephan, DSc (History), Professor, Bielefeld University; 25 Universitätsstr., 33615, Bielefeld, Germany.
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Kerblay B. A.V. Chayanov. Evolution of the Russian agrarian thought from 1908 to 1930: At the crossroads (Article of B. Kerblay) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №4. P. 17-68.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-4-17-68
Annotation
The Russian Peasant Studies presents a collection of archival documents related to the publication of Alexander Chayanov’s works in 1967 in France and England, which was prepared by the Professor of Sorbonne University Basile Kerblay. This collection includes the correspondence of Olga Gurevich, the widow of Chayanov, with Basile Kerblay in 1966-1970, and her translation from French of Kerblay’s article on the work of Chayanov. Kerblay’s article was published as a preface to the collected works of Chayanov and became classic. This is the first serious study of the biography and work of Chayanov and of the theory of the Russian organization-production school of the 1920s in Western sociology. This article is published in Russian for the first time. The letters of Kerblay and Olga Gurevich reveal some additional circumstances of the publication of Alexander Chayanov’s works in 1967 and some features of the ideological atmosphere of the USSR at that time. The collection of archival documents in the Russian Peasant Studies includes comments and a brief biography of Olga Gurevich. These documents are a part of the funds of the Russian State Archive of Economics. This publication is dedicated to the anniversary of Chayanov. The publication with comments was prepared by I.A. Kuznetsov and T.A. Savinova.
Keywords
A.V. Chayanov, rural Russia, peasant studies, interdisciplinary research, agrarian policy, Russian revolution, collectivization.
About the authors
Kerblay Basile
Editors: Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher, the School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Savinova Tatyana A., PhD (Economics), Head of Organizational-Methodical and Personnel Work Chair, Russian State Archive of Economy; 119992, Moscow, B. Pirogovskaya St., 17.
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Translator: Gurevich Olga
Round table “The 100th anniversary of the academician Alexander Alexandrovich Nikonov (1918–1995)”
Oct 19 2018Round table “The 100th anniversary of the academician Alexander Alexandrovich Nikonov (1918–1995)” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №3. P. 70-94.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-70-94
Annotation
The round table at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the academician Alexander Alexandrovich Nikonov (1918–1995) and focused on the milestones of the biography of this prominent agrarian scientist, his intellectual and organizational contribution to the Russian agricultural science. A.A. Nikonov, a heroic participant of the Great Patriotic War, took part in the organization and development of agriculture in Latvia, the Stavropol Region and Moscow, held many senior positions from the Minister of Agriculture of Latvia to the President of the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was known not only for outstanding organizational and intellectual but also personal qualities. The participants of the round table recognized the contribution of the academician Nikonov to the development of the agrarian reforms’ strategy in the USSR of the 1980s and to the creation in the years of perestroika of the Agrarian Institute — a scientific organization of a fundamentally new type, which is now named after the scientist — Nikonov VIAPI. The round-table discussions emphasized that A.A. Nikonov was not working in safe conditions, and scientific activities often demanded from him civil courage and political responsibility. It is to A.A. Nikonov that the Russian agrarian science should be grateful for the consistent desire to rehabilitate the names of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues from the organization-production school and to re-introduce into scientific discourse the forbidden and forgotten heritage of these outstanding scientists. Finally, the discussions emphasized the importance of the last work of the scientist, his book The Spiral of the Century-Old Drama: Agrarian Science and Policy of Russia (18-20 centuries). The participants of the round table consider this book as a still unique and relevant guide for the scientific and moral search for the ways of decent rural development of Russia.
Keywords
A.A. Nikonov, Nikonov VIAPI (Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics), VASKhNIL (Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences), agrarian science, agrarian policy, agrarian reforms, agriculture, A.V. Chayanov’s school.
About the authors
Bakaev Vladimir V., DSc (Economics), Researcher, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Bautin Vladimir M., DSc (Economics), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Chair of Management and Rural Consulting, in 2002–2013 — Rector, in 2013–2016 — President of the Russian State Agrarian University — Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy; 127550, Moscow, Timiryazevskaya St., 49.
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Krylatykh Elmira N., Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, DSc (Economics), Chief Researcher, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Ovchintseva Lyubov A., PhD (Economics), Senior Researcher, Department of Sustainable Rural Development and Rural Cooperation, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Petrikov Alexander V., DSc (Economics), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics, in 2007–2016 — Deputy Minister of Agriculture; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Uzun Vasily Ya., DSc (Economics), Chief Researcher, Center for Agro-Food Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Frolova Elena Yu., PhD (Economics), Senior Researcher, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Kharitonov Nikolay S., PhD (Economics), Honored Lecturer, Chair of Agroeconomics, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 119992, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, 1-46, bld. 3.
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Khozhainov Nikolay T., PhD (Economics), Associate Professor, Chair of Agroeconomics, Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University. 119992, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, 1-46, bld. 3.
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Chayanov A.V. Letter from A.V. Chayanov to V.M. Molotov on the current state of agriculture in the USSR compared with its pre-war state and the situation in agriculture of capitalist countries (October 6, 1927) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №3. P. 6-18.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-6-18
Annotation
Alexander Chayanov wrote this analytical note to Vyacheslav Molotov in early October 1927 to discuss plans for the agricultural development of the first five-year plan in the USSR. Chayanov begins with a brief review of the history of world agriculture in the early twentieth century. He identifies two poles in this evolution: western (American — typically North America and partly South America, South Africa, and Australia) and eastern (Indian-Chinese, typically agrarian overpopulated countries). The American type of agricultural development is based on farms that use machinery and wage labor and are controlled by the vertical system of financial capitalism. The Indian-Chinese type of agricultural development is characterized by agrarian overpopulation of the peasantry under dominant pre-capitalist relations, exceptional labor intensity, and widespread bondage rent and credit. The rest of the world’s regions can be placed between these two poles. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Russia is a paradoxical, complex mixture of these two types. Chayanov believed that in the agrarian science of pre-revolutionary and prewar Russia, these polarized agrarian worlds were reflected in the agrarian-economic disputes of the so-called “southerners” and “northerners” about the strategy of agricultural development. “Southerners” insisted on turning Russia into a “hundredpercent America” by the forced development of farmers’ agriculture. The “northerners” suggested supporting the regional strata of the middle peasantry and its own vertical cooperation to prevent the seizure of the village by trade and financial capital. Chayanov considered himself a “northerner”. He argued that the post-war, post-revolutionary village has changed significantly. First, the younger generation of peasants who had experienced the world war and Russian Revolution set the tone. Second, the Soviet agronomic science and cooperation of the 1920s contributed to the real progress of peasant farms. Soviet Russia has a unique chance to find a fundamentally new path of rural development, thus avoiding the Scylla of Americanfarmers’ dependence on financial capital and the Charybdis of the Indian-Chinese stagnation of peasant overpopulation. Instead of American vertical agrarian integration through the dominance of financial capital over farmers, Soviet vertical integration was to promote the development of diverse forms of peasant cooperation with the support of the socialist state. In the final part of the note, Chayanov considers the ratio of industry and agriculture in the first five-year plan and predicts a radical socialtechnological change under agricultural industrialization. The Soviet leadership ignored the ideas of this note: Stalin rejected Chayanov’s democratic type of vertical cooperation of the peasantry and preferred a horizontal type of cooperation in the form of collectivization. The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.
Keywords
Agrarian policy, peasants, farmers, agricultural cooperation, agrarian capitalism, socialist agriculture, ways of agricultural development.
About the authors
Chayanov Alexander V.
Editor: Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Translator: Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, Russian Federation, 119571.
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Savchenko E.S., Nikulin A.M. “We are all pioneers” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №2. P. 127-154.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-2-127-154
Annotation
In the interview to the Russian Peasant Studies, the Governor of the Belgorod Region, Doctor of Economics, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yevgeny Savchenko refers to his life trajectory to consider the history and the present state of the agrarian and social policy in Russia and the Belgorod Region. The interview focuses on the role of the state in developing a responsible agrarian policy that establishes the rules under the market economy and regulates economic and social interaction of large and small forms of agricultural production, the social development of the village, innovative trends in agriculture, and takes care of environmental challenges, problems of local self-government, and training of personnel for agriculture. The governor emphasized the significance of agroholdings in agriculture and in the Russian society in general, identifies possible directions of agroholdings participation in the development of rural areas. In the Belgorod rural programs, particular attention is paid to restoring soil fertility, environmental development of the “Green Capital” project, and barriers to the spread of bioenergy and alternative energy. The governor notes that despite the catastrophic trials in the life of the Russian peasantry in the 20th century, which determined the loss of peasant mentality, in contemporary Russia there is still a need for preservation and development of the culture of rural communities and territories that seamlessly combine rural traditions and innovations, for example, in the form of ancestral estates and homeowners’ associations. In the conclusion, the interview stresses that by the will of fate rural Russia often had to be a pioneer.
Keywords
Rural Russia, rural development, agrarian policy, collective and state farms, agroholdings, vertical integration, ecology, local self-government.
About the authors
Savchenko Evgeny S., DSc (Economics), Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Governor of the Belgorod Region. 308005, Belgorod, Sobornaya pl., 4.
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Nikulin Alexander M., PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Russian Peasant Studies. Scientific journal
Center for Agrarian studies of the Russian Presidental Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)
- Publisher: Delo Publishing, RANEPA
- Editor-in-Chief: Nikulin Alexander
- ISSN 2500-1809 (Print), ISSN 2949-2564 (Online)
- Founded in 2016
- Frequency: four issues per year (March, Jun, September, December)
- Open Access: All volumes and articles can be downloaded for free in the PDF format.
- Author fees: free of chagre
- Indexation: Russian Science Citation Index, Russian Science Citation Index Core, List of Journals approved by Russian Hihger Attestation committee (Ministry for Sciende and Education), Scopus, UlrichWeb Global Serials Directory, European reference index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIHPLUS), CNKI scholar
- Russian registration number: PI FS77-65824 27-May-2016
Hard copies of the journal can be purchased at the Delo e-store or by subscription in the "Press of Russia" Agency (subscription index - Т81017).
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