Schneider S., Nikulin A.M. “In the joint comparative studies, there is much we can learn from each other” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №3. P. 167-185.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-3-167-185

Annotation

In the autobiographical interview, Sergio Schneider, a leading Brazilian sociologist in the field of sociology of rural development and professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, reconstructs his scientific career and considers dramatic changes in the life of rural and urban communities of Brazil in the late 20th—early 21st century. In particular, the interview focuses on the development of rural sociology in Brazil, its institutionalization, and research interests of those Brazilian social scientists that determined the development of rural sociology and were the teachers of Sergio Schneider. The development of rural sociology in Brazil is presented as influenced by the German, French, American and English historical-sociological traditions of the study of the agrarian question and interaction of the city and the village. The interview emphasizes the significance of A.V. Chayanov’s intellectual heritage for the worldview of Sergio Schneider and Brazilian rural sociology in general. Sergio Schneider stresses the importance of his personal activist position that has always helped him in the search for interaction between politics and science. In conclusion, he raises the question of the development of comparative Brazil-Russian-Chinese rural-urban studies, in which he currently participates.

Keywords

Brazil, sociology, regions, peasantry, university science, rural development, Marxism, Chayanov

About the authors

Sergio Schneider, DSc (Sociology), Professor of Sociology of Rural Development and Food Studies, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Av. Paulo Gama, 110, Porto Alegre, Brazil, 90040-060.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Head of the Chayanov Research Center, MSSES. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Zaslavskaya T.I. “... I am pressed for time now” (Letters of Tatiana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya of 1972–1974) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №3. P. 78-139.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-3-78-139

Annotation

The letters of the academician Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya (1927–2013) describe her life in Novosibirsk and her work at the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (currently the IEOIP SB RAS). These letters present a chronicle of thoughts and feelings of T.I. Zaslavskaya about problems and conflicts in the Soviet science, about paradoxes of economics, culture, education, and everyday life of the Soviet society in the first half of the 1970s. In these letters, T.I. Zaslavskaya’s assessments and characteristics of her contemporaries—colleagues in science, politicians, figures of art and culture—are of particular interest. The letters also reveal the identity of their author—a strong and talented woman, hardworking and cheerful, curious and friendly, tender and vulnerable, keenly feeling injustice and rudeness, falsehood and stupidity. The addressee of these letters is a friend of T.I. Zaslavskaya—Yuri Efimovich Sokolovsky (1927–1984)—PhD (Pedagogy), Associate Professor of the Moscow State Institute of Culture, a Cultural Studies scholar, true expert in the historical-cultural heritage of Moscow, prominent researcher of the psychological-pedagogical issues of the artistic creativity and of the organization and development of rural and urban cultural-educational institutions. The letters were provided for publication in the Russian Peasant Studies by G.I. Reprintseva, the widow of Yu.E. Sokolovsky. The letters were edited and commented by G.I. Reprintseva and A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

Zaslavskaya, Soviet society, science, sociology, economics, culture, Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Moscow, rural Russia

About the authors

Tatyana I. Zaslavskaya

Editors: Galina I. Reprintseva, PhD (Pedagogy); for more than 40 years, she was conducting research at the Russian Academy of Education, in particular in the Laboratory of SocialPedagogical Issues of Family Relations at the Institute of Social Pedagogy; for the achievements in the field of pedagogy, she was awarded the medal of K.D. Ushinsky.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Head of the Chayanov Research Center, MSSES. 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

Sergei V. Kiselev, 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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Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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Chayanov A.V. A Short Course on Cooperation (Article of A.V. Chayanov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №2. P. 8-56.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-2-8-56

Annotation

Translated from: Chayanov A., A Short Course on Cooperation Published by the Central Partnership “Cooperative Publishing House,” Moscow, 1925.

Peasant cooperative movement was one of the most important topics in Alexander Chayanov’s scientific, organizational and pedagogical work. He wrote many articles and books on agricultural cooperation, and had hundreds of classes with students at universities and with peasants to explain and discuss various cooperative issues. Finally, Chayanov presented his conception of the ways to develop agricultural cooperation in his famous book Basic Ideas and Forms of Peasant Cooperation2. At the same time, Chayanov was a talented and passionate popularizer and propagandist of cooperative knowledge among the wider population. Thus, on the basis of his lectures for the Old Believers’ Agricultural Courses “Friend of Land” in Moscow in 1915, he published a booklet A Short Course on Cooperation, and in the next 10 years it was reprinted four times and became a desk book on cooperation for many Russian peasants, agronomists, and activists of rural development. This short course presents clear and unambiguous definitions of cooperation and its aims; each chapter is illustrated with popular historical and contemporary examples of the cooperative movement and of the interaction between peasant farms and specific types of cooperatives. This booklet reminds of two great genres of world literature. On the one hand, it is a propaedeutic ABC of Cooperation, like Leo Tolstoy’s ABC for Children. On the other hand, it is a political-economic Cooperative Manifesto, similar to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Communist Manifesto, in which Chayanov describes a fascinating struggle of the Russian and international cooperative movement for the new just social world. Under the current rural development, Chayanov’s Short Course on Cooperation is not only of a historical interest; it is an outstanding example of the unity of cooperative thoughts and deeds aimed at improving the lives of the broad strata of rural workers all over the world. This Chayanov’s work was translated into English from its fourth and last lifetime edition of 19253.
The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

agricultural cooperation, peasants, consumer cooperatives, credit cooperatives, marketing cooperatives, dairy cooperatives, cooperative solidarity

About the authors

Alexander V. Chayanov

Editor: Alexander M. Nikulin, 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: Irina V. Trotsuk, 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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Nefedova T.G., Nikulin A.M. “You have to work, and they will find you and will offer you everything” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №1. P. 123-144.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-1-123-144

Annotation

In her interview, Tatiana Nefedova, a Chief Researcher at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, tells about her research interests that had formed already in childhood and brought her to the geographical faculty of the Moscow State University, and about her further professional development. As a true geographer, the author traveled a lot all over Russia and the world, participated in different interdisciplinary geographical projects, and at first they were not agricultural. Nevertheless, T.G. Nefedova made a significant scientific contribution to the study and development of rural post-Soviet Russia. At the same time her cross-cultural comparative studies of rural Russia and other countries of the world—Europe and Asia—are no less important. In her interview, she also focuses on various methods to study the spatial development, on the perception and reflections on the poly-scale nature of space, on the diversity of regionality as the most important factor of rural development, and on the ratio of quantitative and qualitative research methods. One of the special topics of the interview is the relationship of the scientist and the authorities. Should a scientist seek power and strive to in fluence the state decision-making with his findings despite the threat of turning from a scientist into a politician or an official? In conclusion, new plans and projects of geographical studies of rural Russia are discussed, for instance, the study of such a combination of factors of social development as the long-inhabited territories, social capital, social mobility, agglomerations, summer residents, and cultural heritage.

Keywords

geography, regions, rural Russia, research methods, rural households, social capital, agglomerations

About the authors

Tatyana G. Nefedova, DSc (Geography), Chief Researcher, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences; 119017, Moscow, Staromonetny per., 29.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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Makarov N.P. At the great crossroads. The comparative analysis of the evolution of agriculture in China, the United States of North America, the USSR, and Western Europe (Article of N.P. Makarov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2019. V.4. №1. P. 6-21.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2019-4-1-6-21

Abstract

This article published in the mid-1920s in the Peasant International was written by an outstanding Russian agrarian scientist and a prominent representative of the organization-production school Nikolai Pavlovich Makarov (1887–1980). It is quite strange that this article was not listed in the bibliographies of Makarov’s works although it is absolutely important for the understanding of the evolution of world agriculture in the 20th century. Moreover, the reader will see that in the second half of the 1920s the ideas of this article were developed in the works of other representatives of the organization-production school — A.V. Chayanov, G.S. Studensky, A.A. Rybnikov. As the title and the foreword of the article show, the author seeks to provide an analytical description of the main directions of the world agrarian evolution of the 1920s and its possible alternatives on the example of four main macro-regions of world agriculture: the USA, China, Western Europe and Russia. First the author focuses on the two so-called “poles” of agrarian development — the United States and China — and argues that “old” labor-intensive agrarian China and the “young” capital-intensive agrarian United States are the exact opposites of each other. It is between these poles that the paths of the agricultural evolution of most countries of the world, including Europe and Russia, are located. Makarov concludes with a preliminary diagnosis of the approaching “great agrarian crossroads” of world agriculture. The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

agriculture, USA, China, Western Europe, Russia, agrarian evolution, peasants, farmers

About the authors

Nikolai P. Makarov

Editor: Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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Uzun V.Ya., Nikulin A.M. “I often wondered what really useful could be done for peasants” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №3. P. 128-161.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-3-128-161

Annotation

In his biographical interview for the Russian Peasant Studies, Vasily Yakimovich Uzun remembers the milestones of his life from the hungry peasant childhood in the Gagauz village to the mature agrarian scientist working in one of the leading Russian research institutions, and considers issues of efficient interaction of theory and practice, economics and politics in ensuring the sustainability of rural-urban development and norms of social justice. In his memoirs, the scientist reconstructs events of his rural war and post-war childhood related to school years and peasant and collective-farm labor, years of studies at the agricultural institute and work as an agronomist on a collective farm, decision to start a scientific career and study economic-mathematical methods of agricultural management that were actual in the 1960–1970s. Then V.V. Uzun focuses on the political and economic events of the 1980s with their dramatic attempts in the period of both stagnation and perestroika to develop a system of comprehensive measures for the effective agrarian reform of the Soviet economy. The interview provides a detailed review of the post-Soviet period of the Russian rural development, in particular of the Nizhny Novgorod experiments on the market reform of large collective farms. The scientific analysis of political-economic issues of rural development is accompanied by characteristic personal examples and anecdotes from the life of Vasily Yakimovich Uzun. 

Keywords

Agrarian economy, Gagauz village, peasantry, economic-mathematical methods, perestroika, theory and practice.

About the authors

Vasily Y. Uzun, 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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Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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Round 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

Vladimir V. Bakaev , DSc (Economics), Researcher, Alexander Nikonov All-Russian Institute of Agrarian Issues and Informatics; 105064, Moscow, Bolshoi Kharitonievski Per., 21–1.
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Vladimir M. Bautin, 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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Elmira N. Krylatykh, 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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Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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Lyubov A. Ovchintseva, 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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Alexander V. Petrikov, 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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Vasily Y. Uzun, 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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Elena Y. Frolova, 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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Nikolay S. Kharitonov, 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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Nikolay Т. Khozhainov, 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

Alexander V. Chayanov
Editor: Alexander M. Nikulin, 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: Irina V. Trotsuk, 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

Evgeny S. Savchenko, DSc (Economics), Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Governor of the Belgorod Region. 308005, Belgorod, Sobornaya pl., 4.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, 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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