Fedorov R.Yu. Evolution of ecological knowledge and social-natural interactions in the development of collective-farm gardens in Siberia // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 103-117.
EDN: AZWZIP
Annotation
Collective-farm gardens were a specific form of human-made nature and an element of subsistence which became a feature of the Soviet village in the 1920s–1980s. Their development was associated with the Soviet state social-economic policy of creating collective subsidiary farms and applying new, scientific approaches to transform the natural environment. The article considers the evolution of ecological knowledge and social-natural interactions in the development of collective-farm gardens in Siberia, based on archive documents, specialized and popular-science literature and results of the author’s field studies conducted in 2023–2024 in the Omsk Region. The development of kolkhoz gardens showed a tendency of a rapid transition from the traditional environmental knowledge (1920s — first half of the 1930s) to the scientific and administrative approaches (second half of the 1930s — 1980s). The author notes the regional features in the development of collective-farm gardens in the natural and climatic conditions of Siberia as determining labor activities and social relations at collective horticultural farms. The retrospective analysis shows how the development of kolkhoz gardens created new social-natural interactions in the Siberian countryside, which were mainly determined by the state policy of imposing collective forms of economic activity in rural areas within the general socialist economy. After the collapse of the USSR, the rapid curtailment of this policy contributed to the abandonment of kolkhoz gardens.
Keywords
Collective-farm (kolkhoz) gardens, Siberia, social-natural interactions, ecological knowledge, sate agricultural policy.
About the author
Roman Yu. Fedorov, DSc (History), Leading Researcher, Tyumen Scientific Center, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Malygina St., 86, Tyumen, 625026.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Saturday, 18 January 2025
- Reviewed Tuesday, 18 February 2025
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Chairmen of collective farms in Western Siberia in the 1930s: Practices of co-adaptation and maladaptation
Feb 10 2025Laperdin V. B. Chairmen of collective farms in Western Siberia in the 1930s: Practices of co-adaptation and maladaptation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №4. P. 144-158.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-4-144-158
Annotation
The article considers the role of the collective-farm chairman in the rural society. As the central figure of the collective farm, the chairman largely determined the degree of collective-farmers’ consolidation. At the same time, the head of the collective farm was “created” by social environment, and his behavior often reflected the collective-farm atmosphere. After becoming the head of the collective farm, the chairman realized its community’s opportunities. In a friendly atmosphere, the head acted effectively for the benefit of all. In case of conflict relations, he could more easily pursue his own interests. The peasantry adapted to the collective farm society within its communities, and successful adaptation depended on the relations between villagers and their head. At the same time, coadaptation of chairmen and collective farm collectives was also determined by social environment. In a favorable environment, both peasants and collective farm chairmen successfully adapted to new living conditions. On the contrary, conflict relations led to the maladaptation of the chairman and disintegration of the labor collective which lost its ability to economic activity and social interaction. The data presented in the article proves the key role of chairmen in collective farm collectives and describes their interaction as reflected at the economic level, in peasants’ attitude to the collective farm and in the nature of work and interpersonal communication of collective farmers.
Keywords
Agrarian history, collective farms, peasantry, collective farm society, chairman, adaptation, Siberia.
About the author
Vyacheslav B. Laperdin, PhD (History), Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
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Additional Info
- Submitted Friday, 26 July 2024
- Reviewed Thursday, 22 August 2024
- Copyright © Auhtors, 2024
- Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Andreenkov S. N. Virgin Project of 1954 in Kazakhstan and Siberia: Dynamics of grain production // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №3. P. 89-105.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-3-89-105
Annotation
The article aims at identifying features of grain production in Siberia and Kazakhstan during the campaign for developing virgin and fallow lands (second half of the 1950s) and subsequent decades of the Soviet and post-Soviet era; such features determined the results and consequences of the Virgin Project in 1954. The author identifies objective and subjective factors affecting the adoption and realization of the virgin land program; considers general and particular practices of plowing new lands; describes the dynamics of sown areas for crops, grain productivity and gross production, its qualitative characteristics in Siberia and Kazakhstan. The author argues that the campaign for developing virgin and fallow lands was a means of N. S. Khrushchev’s struggle for power, which explains its excessively large scale and relatively long duration. The author shows that the virgin land campaign is more significant for the history of Kazakhstan than for the history of Siberia. Due to the new land development in Kazakhstan, the sown areas of crops, primarily wheat, significantly increased; the network of large agricultural enterprises expanded; the infrastructure of agricultural production started to develop. In 1991, these production capacities became the foundations of the contemporary economy of independent Kazakhstan. In Siberia, the sown area of crops has decreased since the mid-1960s, but the gross grain harvest has grown, which indicates opportunities for intensive farming, and such opportunities are gradually realized.
Keywords
Virgin Project, campaign for developing virgin and fallow lands, grain production, acreage, yield, grain farms, agriculture, Kazakhstan, Siberia.
About the author
Sergey N. Andreenkov, PhD (History), Senior Researcher, Sector of Agrarian History, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Akademika Nikolaeva St., 8, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
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Il`inykh V.A. Siberian village during collectivization: Microhistory (Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2021. V.6. №1. P. 71-90.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2021-6-1-71-90
Annotation
The author reconstructs the history of the Plotnikovo village in the Novosibirsk district of the Novosibirsk Region in the late 1920s – 1930s. The research was conducted in the microhistoric format, which allows to consider the agrarian history of Russia in the everyday perspective of its direct actors – peasants united in their primary communities. The article aims at presenting the course of collectivization and its price for a certain rural settlement. In the Plotnikovo village, collectivization began at the end of 1929 with the creation of a giant commune which collapsed after the publication of Stalin’s article “Dizzy with Success”. The small collective farm “Zavety Ilyicha” was established on the basis of this commune. Collectivization resumed in 1931 and ended in the late 1930s. The author also considers anti-peasant repressions, de-kulakization, local famine in 1934-1935, state regulations of the size of the collective farmers’ smallholdings, behavioral strategies of peasants and rural officials. The author concludes that in the early 1940s the Plotnikovo village was at the same or even lower level of development than in the early 1920s. Thus, in general collectivization had a negative impact on the development of agricultural productive forces in the village under study, and the difficulties the villagers survived in the 1930s cannot be counted – only named by V.P. Danilov’s term ‘tragedy of the Soviet village’.
Keywords
Peasantry, village, agrarian policy of the Soviet state, collectivization, collective farms, smallholdings, microhistory, Siberia, Т. Shanin, V.P. Danilov.
About the author
Vladimir A. Il’inykh, DSc (History), Head of the Agrarian and Demographic History Sector, Institute of History, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 630090, Novosibirsk, Ac. Nikolaev St., 8.
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Fadeeva O.P., Nefedkin V.I. Informal public-private partnership as an initiative from below: Rural cases // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №3. P. 131-145.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-3-131-145
Annotation
Local self-government in Russia has seriously degraded in the last decades. The strengthening power vertical and the centralized budgetary policy minimized the ability of rural administrations to finance the construction of social infrastructure facilities. The existing mechanisms and practices of public-private and municipal-private partnerships aim at implementing large projects rather than at contributing to the rural development. The data from the 2018 field research show that the weakening of local self-government is partially restrained by the increased activity of rural residents. For instance, local entrepreneurs spend their money on building schools with the support of local authorities. Based on the regional and ethnic differences in the stories from the Tatar village in the Volga Region and the Russian village in Siberia, the authors identify some common features of projects from below and analyze both their reasons and motives of entrepreneurs in different regions. Such cases of public-private partnerships ‘not by the rules’ should not be considered charity: they have various motives hidden in the relations between the authorities, business and rural population, and they are a result of informal agreements, in which mutual obligations of the participants are not legally set but are demonstrative manifestations of the local identity and of the intention to keep the traditional order.
Keywords
self-government, public-private partnership, rural entrepreneurs, selforganization, Volga Region, Siberia
About the authors
Olga P. Fadeeva, PhD (Sociology), Leading Researcher, Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prosp. Lavrentieva, 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
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Vladimir I. Nefedkin, PhD (Economics), Senior Researcher, Institute of Economics and Organization of Industrial Production, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Prosp. Lavrentieva, 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Afanasenkov V.O. Grain production in the provinces of Siberia (in the late 19th – early 20th centuries). On the relative indicators of yield statistics developed by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №3. P. 6-46.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-3-6-46
Annotation
The article considers the relative indicators of yield statistics developed by the Central Statistical Committee (CSC), based on the data from four Siberian provinces —Yenisei, Irkutsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk—for 1896–1913. The author analyzes food norms in the pre-revolutionary statistical literature and practice, and unifying coefficients for cereals, explains the need for such indicators, presents and examines the rows of per capita yields for each of the Siberian provinces. Based on the comparisons with the current statistics consisting of voluntary correspondents’ answers, the author questions the reliability of the CSC’s data. The article also considers the number of livestock in the Siberian provinces, possible methods and techniques for summing up the number of different types of livestock, and the fodder norms and sets presented in the literature. The author describes features of the production of basic feeds as recorded by the yield statistics of the CSC (potatoes, hay, straw, feed grain) and as calculated with the production indicators based on the CSC’s statistical data and expert estimates (cake, chaff). Yearly data on livestock and feed production is grouped into six-year periods, from which averages are calculated for comparison. The author provides several interpretations of the results related to the reliability of the CSC’s crop statistics and to the possibility of its use in further historical research.
Keywords
agrarian history, per capita yields, Siberia, statistics of animal husbandry, yields statistics
About the author
Vladislav O. Afanasenkov, Junior Researcher, Research Laboratory of Economic and Social History, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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Rozhansky M. Siberian nodes of the empire // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2018. V.3. №2. P. 34-54.
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2018-3-2-34-54
Annotation
The article considers the role of the Siberian factor in the key contradictions of the Russian history, in which the logic of extensive space development prevails over the logic of a decent lifestyle, and the monopolistic nature of power and imperial consciousness are preserved. The author refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “circular reinforcement” (interdependence of physical and social space) as relevant for the social space of Russia. The article considers a new wave of internal colonization and its ideocratic design as a system of power that authorizes itself as the custodian of great historical meanings and demands from its subjects to adhere to these meanings. The author believes that the resumption of the authority of the center (and new hypercentralism) is determined, first, by the confirmation by the new “central” actors of its absolute ownership on the territory of the country, and, second, by the secondary colonization (i.e. the system to hold the population), which explains the reproduction of the empire. The author accepts the key role of the Siberian factor in the search for ways to overcome the logic of extensive development (the program of V. Zubov and V. Inozemtsev) but questions the single subjectness of Siberia as a manifestation of the optics of centralism in social sciences. The Siberian identity (“Siberians”) does not lead to the subjectivity of Siberia even as a form of political reflection. One of the destructive consequences of centralism in social sciences is their inability to articulate the subjectivity of the territory, land or local community in scientific terms. The article outlines the role of some social studies and humanitarian education in promoting real federalism.
Keywords
Siberia, social space, circular reinforcement, internal colonization, ideocracy, local self-government, federalism.
About the author
Mikhail Y. Rozhansky, PhD (Philosophy), Scientific Head of the Center for Independent Social Studies. Address: Bogdan Khmelnitsky St., 30A, Irkutsk-3, 664003, Russia.
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Il’inykh V.A. The star and death of Siberian grassland farming // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 93-121
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-93-121
Annotation
The article considers the attempts to introduce the grassland farming system in Siberia in the context of the Soviet agricultural policy and the ideological and theoretical struggle in the agronomy. In the early xx century in Siberia, there was a threat of the transition from the fallow farming to the three-field system, which could lead to a crisis in the agriculture. By the mid-i920s, the leading specialists of the land authorities and government leaders of the region believed that the crisis could be prevented only by introducing the grassland farming system. At the beginning of the 1930s, this system was given up for it contradicted the task of solving the grain problem. The oblivion of agro-technological bases under the collectivization led to the decrease in soil fertility, thus, in 1937 the grassland farming was introduced in most regions of the country. Its implementation was interrupted by World War 11 and continued in the late 1940s. After the start of the virgin lands development campaign, the grassland farming was declared ineffective and rejected. After the campaign ended, the grassland farming system was not revived—the bid was made for more intensive technologies and chemicals.
Keywords
agricultural policy, farming systems, grassland farming, agricultural engineering, collective-state farms system, Siberia
About the author
Vladimir A. Il’inykh, D. Sc (History), Head of the Department of Agrarian History of the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. 8 Akademika Nikolaeva Str., Novosibirsk, 630090.
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