Gordon A.V. The phenomenon of protest in peasant culture // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 6-26.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-6-26
Annotation
The article considers peasant protests as a form of the peasantry’s life activity in pre-capitalist class societies, which is not adequately interpreted in popular approaches that emphasize the antagonistic nature of such societies, ignore the possibilities of non-antagonistic interaction of social subjects, absolutize the factor of cruel exploitation of peasants, ignoring the certain success of their resistance. Features of peasant protest are determined by the nature of the peasantry as a social community both autonomous and dependent on macro-social environment (‘part-society, part-culture’, according to A. Kreber, R. Redfield). The combination of autonomy and dependence developed in ancient times as a part of the worldview of primitive agricultural societies. Anthropologists consider the so-called gift-exchange relations of such societies with powerful external forces, whose favor was achieved in exchange for a certain part of peasant produce. The mythologeme of a peculiar balance of services according to the ancient principle of do ut des was preserved by the so-called patriarchal worldview in class societies, while the balance was maintained by the everyday peasant resistance to the excessive seizure of their produce and to the gross personal oppression. Such resistance, conceptualized by J. Scott as ‘weapons of the weak’, implied sabotage of landlords’ orders, their untimely or improper execution, theft or damage of masters’ property. An open fight or rebellion meant the exhaustion of the potential for nonviolent resistance. Protesters sought to restore what they considered to be a just order with extreme forms of disobedience: from plowing masters’ land and cutting down forests to direct vandalism and looting, including plundering masters’ property, setting fire to homesteads, mocking or even killing masters and those representing for peasants the order they hated. The highest form of traditional social protest — peasant wars — led to devastation of entire regions and numerous casualties. However, given the power of their traditional worldview, peasants wanted to replace the ruler who had lost legitimacy but not to destroy social hierarchy — in order to restore the autonomy of the communal order and the rights to manage land. Peasant revolutionary ideas were the result of the destruction of the traditional worldview which was undermined by the introduction of egalitarian, socialist, and anarchist ideologemes ‘from outside’.
Keywords
Peasant movement, peasant culture, peasant war, social protest, nonviolent resistance, rebellion, revolution in Russia, V. I. Lenin.
About the author
Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Chief Researcher, Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovsky prosp., 51/21, Moscow, 117418, Russia.
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Round table “Organization-production school in the Russian agrarian-economic thought: History and the present time” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №1. P. 74-98.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-1-74-98
Annotation
The round table “Organization-production school in the Russian agrarian-economic thought: History and the present state” at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration gathered historians, sociologists, economists, and culturologists for an interdisciplinary discussion of the relevance of the scientific legacy of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues not only for agrarian science, but also social sciences and humanities on the eve of the anniversaries of the organization-production school representatives. The participants of the round table focused on the genesis and historical prerequisites of the organization-production school, and on the ideas of the Chayanov’s school as influencing the rural development of Russia and the world in the past and present. The participants of the round table were particularly interested in the recently discovered unique archival papers, such as the responses of A.V. Chayanov and N.P. Makarov to criticism of L.N. Litoshenko and A.A. Manuylov considering the theoretical-methodological foundations of the organization-production school’s idea of peasant economy; and the Chayanov’s texts for the German, French and American journals comprehensively describing features of the Russian and Soviet agrarian-economic science development. The intellectual legacy of A.V. Chayanov and his colleagues A.A. Rybnikov, A.N. Chelintsev, B.D. Brutskus, N.P. Makarov, A.N. Minin, and G.A. Studentsky was considered from the perspective of populist, socialist and liberal traditions in the development of Russian and international peasant studies. The participants of the round table also mentioned theories of other remarkable agrarians that can be called predecessors and followers of the organization-production school.
Keywords
Peasant studies, interdisciplinary studies, organization-production school, theory of peasant economy, populism; socialism, liberalism, rural development.
About the authors
Vinogradsky Valery G., DSc (Philosophy), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, Institute of Scientific Information in Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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Kuznetsov Igor A., PhD (History), Senior Researcher at the School of Public Policy Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prospect Vernadskogo, 82.
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Kurakin Alexander A., Senior Researcher at the Center for Agrarian Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Higher School of Economics, 101100, Moscow, Myasnitskaya, 20.
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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 RAS, Head of the Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1. In 2007–2016 — Deputy Minister of agriculture.
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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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Shanin Teodor, Professor, President of the Moscow School of Social and Economics Sciences, chairman of the Advisory Board of the journal “Russian Peasant Studies”. 119571, Moscow, Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Russia, Poland, and China: Models of post-socialist rural development. Round table // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №3. P. 120-151.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-3-120-151
Annotation
This article is a transcript of the round table at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on March 27, which focused on the comparative analysis of the strategic directions of post-socialist rural development in the People’s Republic of China, the Polish People’s Republic and the Russian Federation. Professor Roman Kisiel made a presentation on the problems of Polish rural economy; professor Yan Hairong highlighted the dialectics of contradictions between collective and private farming in China. To a certain extent the Russian scientists L.D. Boni, V.V. Babashkin, and A.V. Gordon became the co-presenters of the Polish and Chinese colleagues when discussing such problems of rural development as the interaction of large and small-scale agrarian production, capitalist, family and collective forms of agriculture, economy and ecology, the city and village, and especially the national agrarian policies regulating all the above. In many ways, China and Poland turned out to be the poles of political and social-cultural agrarian transformations, which determine possible variations of regional models of rural-urban development in Russia. The round table discussion can be useful not only for academic scientists, but also for practitioners involved in developing state and municipal agrarian policies that are to take into account international agrarian experience.
Keywords
peasantry, land ownership, agrarian reforms, rural development, comparative studies, China, Poland, Russia
About the authors
Babashkin Vladimir V., Professor, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prospect Vernadskogo, 82.
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Boni Ludmila D., DSc (Economics), Chief Researcher, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117997, Nakhimovsky Av., 32.
Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, INION of the Russian Academy of Sciences
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Kisiel Roman, Professor of Economic Science, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. 10-719 Olsztyn, ul. Oczapowskiego 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; 82, Prosp. Vernadskogo, Moscow, 119571, Russia
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Pugacheva Marina G., Senior Researcher, Centre for Fundamental Sociology Higher School of Economics, Deputy Editor Russian Sociological Review, Staraya Basmannaya str., 21/4, Room A205, Moscow, Russian Federation 105066.
Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Associate Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, prosp. Vernadskogo, 82.
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Hairong Yan, Professor, Hong Kong, Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon,
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Gordon A.V., Nikulin A.M. “From a ‘commune member’ to the economic agent—a farmer, an ‘owner and hard worker’...” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2017. V.2. №2. P. 33-52.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2017-2-2-33-52
Annotation
The journal “Russian Peasant Studies” starts a new section “An interview with a researcher” to discuss with the leading Russian and foreign scientists the interdisciplinary problems of the history and the current issues of peasant studies and agrarian science. The first interview was conducted by Alexander Nikulin, the editor of the journal, with the Russian historian Alexander Gordon, the head of the East and South-East Asia section of the INION RAS. He made a significant contribution to the development of Russian peasant studies and their integration in the world historical and cultural tradition. The interview questions consider the relationship of agrarian science and peasant studies, the role of regional factors in the development of peasant studies in France, the Middle and Far East, Southeast Asia and Russia, the contribution of Russian and foreign scientists, writers and intellectuals to the institutionalization of peasant studies, and the current strategies in their development. However, the interview rather focuses on the scientific biography of Alexander Gordon—a researcher and a historian who emphasized the importance of the commune in peasant culture and of the peasant identity as a land owner and a hard worker.
Keywords
commune, peasantry, agrarian reforms, peasant studies, Asia, Europe, the USSR, Russia
About the authors
Gordon Alexander V., DSc (History), Head of the East and South-East Asia Branch, INION of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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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; Russia, 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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Rosa Luxemburg foundation
was a partner of Russian Peasant Studies before it was removed from list of approved foundation in 2022
