Makarov N. P. Russian economic thought on agricultural issues (Article of N.P. Makarov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №1. P. 6-28.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-1-6-28

Annotation

The author of this article, the remarkable Russian economist Nikolai Makarov (1886–1980), is one of the brightest representatives of Chayanov’s organization-production school, who had a long and dramatic life. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow University, he conducted economic-statistical studies of the Russian peasantry and cooperation, and taught a number of agrarian-economic disciplines at the universities of Moscow and Voronezh. Makarov took an active part in the preparation of agrarian reforms during the 1917 Revolution. During the Civil War, he emigrated to the United States and wrote books about American agriculture. In 1924, at the invitation of Alexander Chayanov, Makarov returned to Soviet Russia — as a wellknown professor and influential expert in the comparative studies of rural development in various regions of the world2. The fruitful scientific work of Makarov and his colleagues from the organization-production school was stopped in 1930 — when Stalin accused Chayanov and Makarov of sabotaging collectivization and preparing a counter-revolutionary coup in the USSR. Makarov spent several years in prison, and in the mid-1930s, he was sent to work as an economist at the state farms of the Black-Earth region. In the late 1940s, he was allowed to return to research and teaching, and in old age, he published a number of books on the Soviet agricultural economy.
The article presents the emigrant period of Makarov’s life, when he collaborated with the editorial board of the Peasant Russia journal published in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s. Makarov conducts a political-economic analysis of the main issues and topics in the Russian agrarian thought of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. First, he describes the features of the Narodnik and Marxist theoretical-methodological approaches to the study of the Russian rural evolution. Then, in the spirit of the Chayanov school, Makarov looks for a fruitful compromise between these two ideologies. He notes the important impact on Russian agrarians of the international, primarily German, studies of the agricultural organization and evolution. The final sections of the article explain Makarov’s original classifications and typologies of the forms and directions of the agricultural evolution. Today, a hundred years later, this Makarov’s work helps us to better understand the debatable roots of the Russian and global agrarian ideologies in the early 20th century.

Keywords

Agrarian question, Narodniks, Marxists, differentiation of peasantry, agricultural evolution.

About the authors

Makarov Nikolai P.
Trotsuk Irina V. (translator), 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.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
Nikulin Alexander M. (publisher), PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp., 82.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Chayanov A.V. Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy (Part 1) (Article of A.V. Chayanov) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2020. V.5. №1. P. 6-30.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2020-5-1-6-30

Annotation

The book by Alexander Chayanov Main Ideas and Methods of Social Agronomy is one of his key interdisciplinary works written and published at the beginning of the October Revolution and the Civil War. In this work, the economist Chayanov is a social philosopher considering the rural evolution as determined not only by the market and the state but mainly by the will and knowledge of rural households that can be led to the sustainable rural development by the organized public mind (a kind of a synonymous for civil society). Its most important social institution in the rural sphere is social agronomy. Chayanov emphasizes that social agronomy is one of the youngest social institutions. It appeared in the late 19th century in Europe and North America and in three decades turned into an influential movement uniting agrarian scientists, agrarian activists and a huge number of peasants striving for agricultural knowledge for more productive and cultural development of their households.
In this book, Chayanov is not only a social philosopher but also a social activist and organizer, teacher and psychologist. The book is based on his seminar, ‘Social Agronomy and Agricultural Cooperation’, which incorporated many years of personal communication with peasants, agronomists and agrarian scientists about dissemination and application of agrarian knowledge by peasants.
We publish the first five chapters of the book about the tasks and methods of social-agronomic work, its program and organization. For the contemporary reader, this publication is not only of historical interest. Chayanov’s ideas are still relevant for the effective interaction of professional agrarians with the rural population, peasants and farmers in the organization of agricultural knowledge, agricultural cooperatives and agricultural consulting. 
The publication with comments was prepared by A.M. Nikulin.

Keywords

social agronomy, agricultural evolution, peasants, state, agrarian reforms, agrarian knowledge, agricultural cooperation

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; Head of the Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
Translator: Trotsuk Irina V., DSc (Sociology), Senior Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Researcher, Chayanov Research Center, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. 119571, Moscow, Vernadskogo Prosp, 82.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.