Trotsuk I.V., Ishmukhametov R.R. Community as the basis of social well-being: State, markets, schools and other actors of “inclusive localism” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №1. P. 203-216.

EDN: QKCSWP

Annotation

Review of the book: Rajan R. (2025) The Third Pillar. How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind. Transl. from English by S. Moiseev. Moscow: Gaidar Institute Publishing House. — 488 p.

About the authors

Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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Rustam R. Ishmukhametov, PhD (Sociology), Associate Professor, Institute of Education Development of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Mingazheva St., 120, Ufa, Bashkortostan, 450005, Russia.
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Brutskus B.D. Agricultural Economy: National-Economic Foundations. Chapter 14. General Principles of Agricultural Cooperation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2026. V.11. №1. P. 6-24.

EDN: DORWDB

Annotation

This is an English translation of Chapter 14 “General Principles of Agricultural Cooperation” from the textbook published in Russian by the agricultural economist B. D. Brutskus in Germany in 1923. Boris Davidovich Brutskus (1874–1938), a liberal economist, always emphasized the importance of the multi-structured national economy in which various social institutions can have goals and values   different from those of entrepreneurial enterprises of the capitalist market economy. Brutskus recognized the specificity of agriculture compared to other economic sectors, in particular the different organization of the peasant economy and the capitalist enterprise. Thus, he was a like-minded colleague of scholars from Alexander Vasilyevich Chayanov’s organization-production school. The Soviet government declared Brutskus a reactionary bourgeois economist and expelled him from the USSR in 1922 for his profound and witty critique of the political-economic foundations of the socialist economy.
While in exile, Brutskus presented his agrarian-economic views as a textbook on agricultural economy. In both Tsarist Russia and Soviet Russia of the 1920s as a primarily agrarian country, such textbooks were very popular. Brutskus’s textbook had two distinctive features: first, since the author was an agronomist by basic education, he placed a strong emphasis on agricultural biological processes in relation to agrarian economy; second, two final chapters of the textbook focused on agricultural cooperation, which was also unusual for textbooks that certainly included information about cooperation, but not in such large volumes and not in such a structured manner. 
Brutskus’s textbook attracted attention not only in the Russian emigrant community, but also in Soviet Russia, where it was reprinted and widely used in universities until the start of collectivization in 1929, despite the fact that the author was in exile and had been declared an enemy of Soviet power. However, in the USSR the textbook was published without two last chapters on cooperation due to Soviet censorship. Brutskus commented on this ban in the article on cooperative ideology published in the German newspaper in Russian: “Recently, the Soviet government showed minimal liberality towards my academic work. After 15 months of censorship, my course on agricultural economy was cleared for publication4... But in one respect censors showed extreme intolerance: two chapters on agricultural cooperation were cut from the first page to the last. Although there is nothing specifically political in these chapters. However, the Bolshevik censorship could not accept my description of cooperation as a unique principle of economic construction, different from socialism”5. According to Brutskus, cooperative social institutions — a special economic phenomenon, a unique third force, different from institutions of both capitalist and state-controlled, socialist economies; however, cooperation always faces the risk of being incorporated and absorbed by both market entrepreneurship and state bureaucracy. The past hundred years seem to have convincingly confirmed many of Brutskus’s ideas of cooperation and his concerns about the distorting influence of both capitalism and socialism on cooperation. We publish this chapter from Brutskus’s book in English as a still-relevant example of the classic legacy of Chayanov’s school from its golden age.

Keywords

Cooperation, agrarian policy, market, peasantry, capitalism, socialism.  

About the authors

Boris D. Brutskus

Alexander M. Nikulin (publisher), 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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Irina V. Trotsuk (translator), DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Trotsuk I.V. Typology and topology of rural settlement: Possibilities and limitations of a brief presentation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №2. P. 196-206.

EDN: EOISTS

Annotation

Review of the book: Bystrova T.Yu., Mazaev G. V. (2024) Rural Settlement: History and Typology. Yekaterinburg: TATLIN. 108 p. ISBN: 978-5-00075-362-0

About the author

Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, 119571, Moscow.
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Brutskus B.D. Elimination of the world crisis (Article of B.D. Brutskus) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №1. P. 6-15.

EDN: AAOQLZ

Annotation

Boris Davidovich Brutskus (1874–1938) was a remarkable economist whose agrarian studies are usually attributed to A. V. Chayanov’s organization-production school. However, agrarian issues were only one aspect of Brutskus’s multifaceted intellectual heritage as a major specialist in Jewish migration and colonization in the late 19th — early 20th centuries, in the political-economic criticism of the Russian Revolution, Soviet economic system and socialism in general. He was an insightful expert not only in issues of the Russian and Soviet economic policy but also in international economic-political relations.
In his theoretical and ideological views Brutskus was a consistent supporter of liberalism but not an orthodox supporter of the homo economicus model. He spoke with deep respect and understanding about worldview values of socialism of both populist and Marxist directions, which were associated with the ideas of cooperative family economies and a socially oriented state, and emphasized that the market, free enterprise and economic freedom were fundamental conditions for any freedom in principle.
With the Bolsheviks coming to power, during the civil war, Brutskus consistently and convincingly criticized the Soviet economic policy, for which the United State Political Administration (OGPU) expelled him on the so-called philosophical steamship to Germany. In Europe, until the early 1930s, Brutskus lectured on agrarian issues and political economy at the Russian Scientific Institute in Berlin and taught at the Yiddish University in Vilnius. After the Nazis came to power, he moved to Paris, and in 1935 emigrated to Palestine, where he headed the Department of Agricultural Economics and Policy at the University of Jerusalem, which was established with funds from the Jewish National Fund and at which he conducted research and taught until his death in 1938. Brutskus “was very enthusiastic about not only teaching but also practical activities to promote Jewish agriculture”. Brutskus’s great contribution to the developing Jewish agricultural and economic science was recognized and highly praised: his course of lectures was published posthumously, and the national journalism called him a Jewish genius of our time.
Brutskus was an incredibly gifted and prolific economist and publicist, his analytical articles on the most current social-economic events of the 1920s and 1930s were published in newspapers and magazines not only in the Russian émigré press but also in national languages in periodicals of some European and North American countries. Thereby, it is not surprising that the article “Elimination of the world crisis”, which was discovered in B.D. Brutskus’s collection in the Central Archive for History of the Jewish People and which the author had prepared for publication but had not managed to publish, provides an overview of fundamental contradictions and probable alternatives for political-economic development of the world economy recovering with difficulty and in contradictory ways from the Great Depression in the second half of the 1930s.
In this article, Brutskus identifies those groups of countries and key sectors of the economy that overcame consequences of the world crisis in different ways. This multipolarity of political-economic development caused Brutskus concern mainly due to the strengthening tendencies of bureaucratic autarkization of economies in some countries preparing for war. At the end of the article, Brutskus prophetically warns that the implementation of the German slogan “guns instead of butter” under declining international movement of migrants, capital, goods and increasing political-economic polarization of countries leads to an escalation of international tension and future military-political conflicts.

Keywords

Crisis, market, capitalism, unemployment, agriculture, industry, League of Nations, economic policy.

About the authors

Boris D. Brutskus
Publishers: Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics),Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences.Gazetny per., 3-5, bl. 1, Moscow, 125009, Russia.
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Vladislav O. Afanasenkov, Junior Researcher, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Gazetny per., 3-5, bl. 1, Moscow, 125009, Russia.
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Translator: Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Chair, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
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Trotsuk I. V. Social-spatial features of the Chinese (sub)urbanization // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №3. P. 265-279.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-3-265-279

Annotation

Review of the book: Xuefei Ren (2023) Urban China, Boston/Saint Petersburg: Academic Studies Press/Bibliorossika.

About the author

Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, 119571.
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Trotsuk I. V. A few methodological notes based on the field observations of rural human capital in the Russia’s Non-Black Earth Region // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №2. P. 6-19.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-2-6-19

Annotation

The article presents some methodological considerations on the possibilities and limitations of the qualitative approach (repeated case studies in the specific Russian region) for the sociological assessment of human capital. In the first part of the article, the author considers the Russian tradition of rural studies as combining two analytical ‘optics’ — sociological/ethnographic observations of local realities based on various combinations of qualitative techniques and a strong anthropological/ peasant-studies emphasis with large-scale social surveys aimed at macro-descriptions of agrarian reforms, rural social/human capital and agro-industrial complex under the persistent trends of social-spatial differentiation. In the second part, the author mentions the key possibilities and limitations of case studies for assessing the state and prospects of rural human capital in the most depressed rural region of Russia, focusing on the role of entrepreneurs in formal and informal support of the local rural economy and communities in cooperation with municipal and regional authorities. In the final part, the author emphasizes typologies as the analytical result of rural case studies (especially the repeated ones) and provides examples — ‘types’ of the local agricultural producer relationships with the rural settlement’s authorities and community (as the basis for preserving rural human capital) and ‘types’ of the rural entrepreneurs’ biographical trajectories (as the basis for the generational continuity of this differentiated rural stratum).

Keywords

(Repeated) case study, field research, typology, analytical generalizations, rural entrepreneur, rural human capital, positive and negative trends, local authorities, rural community, formal and informal interaction.

About the author

Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Intercenter, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Trotsuk I.V. A few words about (un)certainty and its management in the rural part of the contemporary uncertain world // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №4. P. 174-182.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-174-182

Annotation

Review of the book: Scoones I. (Ed.) (2023) Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development, Rugby: Practical Action Publishing. 180 p. URL: https://practicalactionpublishing.com/ book/2667/pastoralism-uncertainty-and-development

About the author

Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Intercenter, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82. Moscow, 119571.
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Nikulin A.M., Trotsuk I.V. Utopias of Alexander Bogdanov and Alexander Chayanov: The choice of rural-urban development and its consequences for rural human capital and social differentiation // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №4. P. 23-40.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-23-40

Annotation

A science-based conversation about the current state of rural areas, prospects for rural human capital and trends in rural differentiation is impossible without the conceptual approaches and futuristic projects of great Russian agrarian scientists. The article presents an attempt of comparing such ideas of two outstanding social thinkers of the early 20th century — Alexander Bogdanov and Alexander Chayanov, focusing on their utopias as representing the essential features (proletarian and peasant) of their social-economic and cultural-ethical views. Bogdanov and Chayanov had extensive encyclopedic knowledge and brilliant organizational skills; they wrote original works on social philosophy and political economy; both were prominent leaders of alternative social-political directions of the Russian Revolution. Moreover, Bogdanov and Chayanov wrote several famous utopias: Bogdanov’s utopia develops Marxist ideas of proletarian revolution and construction of socialism not only on earth but also in space; Chayanov’s utopia of moderate cooperative socialism defends the new revolutionary significance of the peasantry. The proletarian ideologist Bogdanov was skeptical about the political potential of the peasantry, arguing that opponents of proletarian revolution would use peasant conservatism against socialist revolution. The peasant ideologist Chayanov was skeptical about the creative potential of the working class, predicting that in the coming social revolution it would be used to build authoritarian-bureaucratic socialism. However, both thinkers sought prospects for rural-urban development through the analysis of possible ways of interaction between man and nature. Despite the ignorance of the positive revolutionary potential of the proletariat (Chayanov) and the peasantry (Bogdanov), both thinkers made huge contributions to the theory and practice of the Russian Revolution, and their utopian ideas still inspire the search for a new just, humane and happy world.

Keywords

A.V. Chayanov, A.A. Bogdanov, utopia, proletariat, peasantry, Marxism, corporatism, colonialism, human capital.

About the authors

Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; ViceRector for Research, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571.
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Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Intercenter, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Nikulin A.M., Cañón Voirin L., Diaz-Geada A., Trotsuk I.V. Introduction. Special Issue — Differentiation in contemporary rural societies // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №4. P. 6-9.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-6-9

About the authors

Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; ViceRector for Research, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571.
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Cañón Voirin Lisandro, DSc (History), Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Oviedo. C. San Francisco, 3, 33003 Oviedo, Asturias, Spain.
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Diaz Geada Alba, PhD (History), Professor, History Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Santiago de Compostela. Campus Terra Complexo docente do campus de Lugo, s/n, Lugo, 27002, Spain.
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Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Intercenter, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Shagaida N.I., Ternovsky D.S., Trotsuk I.V. Russia’s ways to ensure food security (control food prices) in 2020–2022, and their impact on consumers // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №3. P. 87-112.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-3-87-112

Annotation

This year confirmed an ambiguous situation with food security in Russia. On the one hand, the government insists on the achieved sustainable food self-sufficiency/sovereignty: “Russia is self-sufficient in all basic types of food”2 ; “the level of food security in Russia is one of the most reliable in the world”3; “the Eurasian Economic Union has reached a level of self-sufficiency in most food products (grain, vegetable oils, pork, lamb, sugar, eggs)”4. The Russian leadership admits the “very complex nature” of food sovereignty as depending on climate change, population growth, trade wars, sanctions, and so on5. However, the official discourse emphasizes that “we should not be pessimists”, “a country striving to be sovereign must provide itself with food”, and Russia solves this task so successfully that has become one of the largest food exporters. Therefore, “in 2023, food inflation in Russia will be one of the lowest in the world due to self-sufficiency in basic products” 6 and “systemic measures of anti-crisis support for enterprises and sectors that ensure food security”7 . Since mid-2020, rising prices on world markets have determined higher prices on domestic markets, and high food inflation affected many countries. In Russia, food inflation is lower compared to other regions (10% vs 19.1% in the EU or 14.9% in the OECD), and the rate of increase in food prices is lower than general inflation, while in other countries food prices became key drivers of accelerating retail prices. The article considers Russia’s measures for keeping food prices down and its population’s everyday food-consumer practices for keeping usual diet under rising prices. The survey confirmed the persistent inconsistency of Russians’ assessment of food practices, which can be explained by the trend to ‘normalize’ one’s life situation in general and in its most essential part (daily diet) in particular. 

Keywords

Rising food prices, foreign and domestic markets, food inflation, food prices volatility, food (in)security, (everyday) food-consumer practices, economic and physical access to food, sociological data.

About the authors

Natalia I. Shagaida, DSc (Economics), Head of the Center for Agro-Food Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Denis S. Ternovsky, DSc (Economics), Senior Researcher, Center for Agro-Food Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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Irina V. Trotsuk, DSc (Sociology), Professor, Sociology Department, RUDN University; Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
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